By Krishnan Nayar NEW DELHI, (Pakistan Point News - 30th Oct, 2021) Producing 12 percent of the global fruit and vegetable output, India has become the second largest source of horticulture crops in the world, India’s Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said yesterday.
Tomar made the announcement at a national conference here to mark 2021 as the "International Year of Fruits and Vegetables" as mandated by a United Nations General Assembly Resolution, 74/244. The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the UN is the lead agency for celebrating the year.
The announcement augurs well for UAE-India joint initiatives in food security, including plans on the drawing board for several mega food parks to be set up in India as joint ventures with UAE investment.
The Minister revealed that, last year, India recorded the highest ever production of 320.47 million metric tonnes in horticulture. Yesterday, the Ministry of Agriculture here released estimates of the area and production of various horticultural crops in the fiscal year 2020-21, which anticipated a further increase in both production and land area under horticulture.
"Horticulture production for 2020-21 is estimated to be 331.05 million metric tonnes, which is also higher by 10.6 million metric tonnes than in the previous year," Tomar said. The area under horticultural crops has gone up to 27.59 million hectares in 2020-21 compared to the previous year’s total of 26.48 million hectares.
Tomio Shichiri, FAO Representative in India, told the conference that the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, along with the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, was observing the UN-designated year with the theme: "Mainstreaming Indigenous Fruits and Vegetables for a Food and Nutrition Secure Future".
He said the national conference is an opportunity to listen and share the national and international priorities from the decision-makers on the promotion of fruits and vegetables.
