Horticulture Plant
Fruits and vegetables are rich sources of vitamins and nutrients. Flowers’ beautifying every event and festival makes one of most interesting arms of Agriculture. The horticulture section is doing well in India when compared with others food crops, since it fetches good price because of its nature of seasonality. The estimation of the potential profits can be drawn by the fact that a farmer producing wheat of 1 kg gets 10 times higher prices for the same produce in horticulture section. Fruits like banana fetch as much as 30 folds more remuneration. Flowers (seasonal) can draw up to 30-35 times of remuneration. Considering this high potential, the concept of doubling farmers’ income can work magically with horticultural crops. There is a need of shift from traditional crops and cropping pattern to horticulture crops like fruit and vegetables.
Horticulture is not merely a means of diversification but forms an integral part of food, nutritional security and poverty alleviation and also an essential ingredient of economic security. India, like many other countries, is very concerned about food security, thus rural development has become primary area of focus in the current agricultural and horticultural development programs.
Importance of horticulture
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Higher per unit area yield:The yield per hectare of horticulture crops is very high than the yield of field crops. There is more yield obtained from the land of an fruit area. e.g. paddy gives a maximum yield of only 30 q/ha, while Banana gives 300 to 500 q/ha, Pine apple 450 q/ha and Grapes 90-150 q/ha. In present scenario, the shortage of fruits and vegetables can be met by growing more fruits/vegetables.
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Labour remains engaged for the whole:An opportunity for maintaining labours throughout the year like the cereals where one cannot keep himself and employ the labours during the slack season.
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Best utilization of waste land: Some fruit crops can offer best utilization of waste land crops like wood apple, custard apple, karonda, litchi etc. can be grown in such areas.
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Raw material for industries: Fruit farming is the base for several industries like canning, essential oils, etc which in turn provide employmentto other persons.
