Dovetailing horticulture - 'To diversify the agriculture'

Horticulture is an integral part of national food and nutritional security, diversification of agriculture, and economy. It is gold mine, reason being is from last 6 consecutive years national production of horticulture crops is outstripping the food grain production [estimated at 305.4mt (2017-18) against 276mt in food grains (2016-17)] when horticulture covers meagerly close to 12 percent of total gross area nationally.

Majority of farmers (more than 85 percent roughly) are small and marginal who are engaged in horticulture, so it suits most of farmers irrespective off geography. In Punjab also majority of farmers fall in category of small and marginal, so there is lot of scope for horticulture to make dent on state agriculture and economy. Horticulture has lot of subjects/domains/options to diversify state agriculture and remunerate farmers which could also uplift the living standard of farmer community as a whole. Some pertinent things must be considered while dealing with horticulture.

Niche Diversification

Punjab horticulture is suffering from mono-culture of citrus fruits (more than 70 percent of horticultural area is under Kinnow), so even diversification with-in-the horticulture is need of order. Once signatured crops of the state; mango, pear, peach, plum etc must be revived. We could also encourage minor fruits like jamun, mulberry, lassoda, falsa, bael, amla, karonda, moringa etc as avenue and boundary trees in school and community gardens, or on community [panchyati]and forest lands. These minor fruits are very climate resilient and treasure trove of vital nutritional elements, and even well flourish on marginally poor soils.

We need to strengthen niches/pockets for specific vegetables and fruits production, and further cluster approach for effective procurement and marketing. There is also need to revive and promote the traditional agri[cultural] practices like seri-culture where it was existed before and getting decimated in kandi/Gurdaspur/Pathankot areas. Bee-keepers of Punjab has remained quite successful in terms of production of honey and allied products but many factors (depleting of flora of state in total, less pollen on hybrid crops, Bt cotton, overuse of neo-nicotenoids and overuse of poisons in state agriculture etc) also disturbing the bee-keepers which must be taken care of.
As trend of AYUSH and alternative medicines, organic and natural food, herbs and aromatics is increasing due to consumer awareness about food and aesthetics, and high disposable incomes; cultivation of aromatic, herbs, flowers etc must be linked with state horticulture schemes. We could also leverage national schemes like Parmpragat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) and MGNREGA etc to push the organic farming in arid zones and kandi areas where chemical load is less by default due to lack of water and marginal soils. Dovetailing of MGNREGA effectively with agriculture, horticulture, forestry, agro-forestry, agro-horticulture etc could also make great impact at grass-root levels. Further horticulture plantation could also promoted with the traditional crops with as agro-horticulture or tree-based cropping as effective state policy which is also need of hour in context to changing climate.

Value-addition and integrated value-chains

Despite huge production nationally as well as in state, retail prices of fruits and vegetables sky rocket and burn the pockets of consumer, and farmers hardly get the price realization. Price realization is hardly range between 20-30 percent. There is large variance between procurement prices and retail prices, implying fragmented markets and poor cold chain facilities. It affects farmers and consumers equally. Further wastage of perishables is more than 30 percent which is also equally impacting the horticulture produce, integrated value-chains are weak link to build on the potential of horticulture. Many start-ups are coming-up and working on integrated value & cold chains, who must be encouraged. 
Value addition which equally remunerate the farmers and reduce the wastage of perishable horticulture produce also promote MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) sector, generate employment, and bring many spin-off socio-economic benefits should be encouraged.

There are large capacity of cold storage but majority of occupied by potatoes, and not suitable to accommodate other horticulture produce. Moreover technologically they have been turned-up outdated so, there is need to strengthen the modern facilities of pack houses and controlled atmospheric storage for fruits and vegetables. 

Capacity building, Intra & inter-departmental integration
Inter-governmental memorandum of understanding (MoUs) of state departments with central government and foreign governments to import technology, guidance and capacity building has become in-thing. The scope of established and emerging centres of excellence for various genres under department of horticulture, agriculture and state agricultural university must be widen to encourage skill & human resource development and capacity building of agricultural department people to bring collective change in state agriculture.

Poor inter & intra-departmental cooperation and integration is leading to fragmentation of agriculture as a whole. Even the rising crises for resource conservation and replenishing sick soils are now evident, and can only be attributed due to discretionary practices and lack of interdisciplinary approach in farming systems. So, there is very much need to create bridges between the various fragmented agricultural department to serve the farmers in organic whole way by working and thinking collectively. Further digitization should be leveraged to deliver and disseminate the departmental services.
We are sitting on gold-mine, why not to mine judicially to bring well-being and wealth to each and everyone in society, whether it is consumer or farmer.

(Views are personal and written in objective capacity)

Moringa- Nature's Blessing To Mankind

Moringa, which is also known as drumstick, horse-radish-tree, ben-oil-tree is fast growing deciduous & drought tolerant tree native to southern sub-Himalayan region. It is also known as sahjan/ sahanjana in folk language. Moringa is widely cultivated in tropical and sub-tropical parts of India.
Moringa has many species but Moringa oleracia is most widely cultivated and studied species. This is originally an Indian tree but whole world is falling in love with this wonderful tree for various reasons including climate-resilience, food and nutritional security, inherited hardiness of it. It is being one of well documented and researched tree and to be found powerhouse of all kinds of essential amino-acids, vitamins and minerals. Even Fidel Castro fell in love with the magical beauty of moringa. He procured some of moringa trees from Kerala and planted in his kitchen-garden back home in Cuba. Now numerous countries in all the continents including Cuba is heavily focusing on cultivation of moringa plantation. Castro when fell sick and recovered, gave all the credit to moringa for his recovery and well-being.

“Moringa, originally from India, is the only plant that has every kind of amino acid. With proper planting and management, its green-leaf production can exceed 300 tons per hectare in a year. It has dozens of medicinal properties,” Fidel said.

Growing Habit
Moringa is fast growing deciduous, drought tolerant tree which can reach up-to height of 10-12 meter but generally it is being kept as shrub in commercial cultivation. Normal pH and well drained sandy soils are best for moringa cultivation. Pruning, training and managing tree is common cultural practice to be performed. Moringa flourishes in poor fertile soil without any amendment in soils with synthetic fertilization that is why it is gaining popularity through out the world where desertification and drought is commonly found. It poorly responses to fertilizers, so natural farming of moringa is advisable.
Flowers start bearing after six-months of planting the tree. In cool regions it flowers once in a year between April to June. In southern India or tropical parts flowering happens twice or even all the year around. Fruits are hanging pods with tree-sided brown capsules of 20-45 cm in size filled with papery winged seeds.

Use
Every single part from roots to fruit pods, from flowers to leaves have been consumed in one or another form hence is 'Kalpa-vriksaha'. Roots are taste like horse-radish (root condiment vegetable) hence name coined horse-radish tree. Leaves of moringa is being used for animal fodder, green-manuring, human concoction/tea preparation. Leaves are being dried and used in many culinary and medicinal treatments. Leaves are very rich in protein and to be cure for more than 300 diseases, and rich in vitamin-C, calcium, anti-oxidants, anti-inflammatory components etc. Immature pods of moringa are consumed in soups, sauted vegetable mix and with rice in many parts of India. Pods are super-food to take care the bone-health. Pods of moringa  have been widely used in joint-pain relief medicines as these improve bone marrow density. White flowers of moringa are also used as vegetable mix in many parts of India. Seeds of moringa is used to extract oil for cooking and medicinal purposes. Moringa-seed-cake has unique properties of water purification so moringa-seed-cake is getting popularity through-out the world for its unique properties. Dry leaves powder is also being used as hand-washing and herbal soap.
Moringa is also grown as green fodder crop exclusively in some parts of India and world-wide. National Diary Development Borad (NDDB) promoting moringa among diary farmers because of its nutritional and climate resilience value.



International Significance
Moringa is widely grown as wind-breaks and helps in prevention of soil erosion/desertification and provide nutritional security in context to climate change so this tree is included in many world-bank, World Economic Forum and international projects to mitigate food and nutritional security and for sustainability of degrading soils and agriculture health.

Multiplication
Moringa is very easy to multiply and propagate. It can be multiplied through seeds or through cuttings vegetatively. Seeds can be planted anytime of year. Seeds need to soak in water for 12-24 hours and can be germinated ex-situ by wrapping in jute-bag, then transplanting or soaked seeds can be transplanted in grow-bags to raise nursery. 45-60 days plant becomes ready for transplanting. Generally in northern India spring (March-April) and monsoon season (July-September) remains best season to transplant 45-60 days old plant. During transplanting top of plant needs to prune to promote side branching.

It can also multiply through cuttings. As it is deciduous in nature, winters are best season to raise nursery of moringa. Pencil thickness 50-100 cm sticks can be used to raise nursery.

https://www.facebook.com/vipeshagriculture/

(Views are personal and written in personal capacity)