Despite being much advocated by various state governments, diversification in agriculture has failed to pick up in the country. Blame it on lack of extension services in the agriculture sector or inadequate irrigation facilities, but farmers have been largely hesitant in taking up horticulture crops or allied activities such as fishery and poultry. And, despite government encouragement, investment in providing quality seeds, irrigation facilities, creating infrastructure for post and pre-harvesting techniques, besides providing a robust marketing network, has been rather slow. ?Large diversification is still a distant dream and only few states such as Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka have taken initiatives toward diversification into various horticulture crops,? says Ramesh Chand, director, National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research.
Horticulture
Though the allocation for horticulture increased to Rs 8,809 crore in the Eleventh Plan under National Horticulture Mission, against Rs 1,630 crore in the Tenth Plan, an agriculture ministry official admits, ?There has been limited expansion of horticulture crops despite the huge potential.? Regarding the National Horticulture Mission, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar says an additional area of 16.57 lakh hectares has been brought under horticultural crops in the past five years and about 2.78 lakh hectares of senile orchards rejuvenated.
Fishery
Coming to fishery, although Pawar has repeatedly stressed on the potential of expanding inland fisheries, which would boost fishermen and farmers’ income, growth in the ‘sunrise sector’ has been far from satisfactory. ?There are several inter-departmental issues among state governments to be sorted out before the potential of fisheries is realised,? says S Ayyappan, director general of ICAR. He says there are opportunities for increasing inland fisheries potential in the country through promoting river, canal, and reservoir fisheries. An NCAP study on the exploring market opportunities for fisheries in India said that due to prevalence of variable prices in different markets, there is imperfection in the Indian fishing trade. Despite the shortcoming during the past 25 years, marine and inland fish production has been growing at a rate of 4.6% and the output is around 7.3 million tonne per annum at present. More than 750 species of fish of the 1,600 traded in the country belong to fresh water. A report by the National Fisheries Development Board last year recommends that fisheries should be brought under the APMC.
Poultry
Outbreak of bird flu at regular intervals and volatility in feed prices have been major factors adversely impacting expansion of the country’s poultry industry, estimated to be more than Rs 20,000 crore. The government has been working on creating special zones for the poultry industry so as to minimise impact of bird flu. ?Volatility in feed prices due to export of soybean meal hits us the most,? says Ricky Thapar, treasurer of Poultry Federation of India.