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)