At 329.86 MT in 2020-21, India is set to witness highest ever horticulture crop production

Workers carry sacks of potatoes inside a cold storage unit at the Fryo Foods Pvt factory in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India, on Monday | Representational image | Prashanth Vishwanathan | Bloomberg

New Delhi: India’s horticulture production is expected to increase by 2.93 per cent to a record level of 329.86 million tonnes (MT) in 2020-21, according to the second advance estimate of horticulture production released by the Ministry of Agriculture Thursday.

In the previous year, the country’s horticulture crop production was 320.47 MT. The increase can be seen mainly in all horticulture crops such as fruits, vegetables, aromatic and medicinal plants, spices and plantation crops, except flowers.

Among the three most widely consumed vegetable crops – potato, onion and tomato – the maximum increase in production has been seen in potato, with a surge of over 10.55 per cent.

While potato production is estimated to increase to 53.69 MT in 2020-21 against 48.56 MT in 2019-20, the production of onion and tomato are estimated to be just marginally higher – for onion it is 26.92 MT in 2020-21 up from 26.09 MT last year and for tomato, it is 21 MT in 2020-21 compared to 20.55 MT in 2019-20

The overall production of vegetables is estimated to be 196.27 MT compared to 188.28 MT in the previous year. The fruit production is estimated to increase to 102.76 MT against 102.08 MT last year. This slight increase in fruit production of 0.68 MT is mainly contributed by an increase in output of prominent fruits such as banana, mango and jackfruit.

Estimated increase in coconut production in states like Karnataka, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu – from 14.01 MT last year to 14.63 MT in 2020-21 – has pushed up overall plantation crop production to 16.60 MT this year from 16.12 MT.

The production of spices, meanwhile, has also seen an estimated increase of almost 4 per cent from 10.14 MT in 2019-20 to 10.54 MT in 2020-21. While the major increase in production is estimated in crops such as chillies (dried), cardamom, coriander and garlic, there has been an estimated dip in the production of major spices such as turmeric and cumin.

(Edited by Priyanjali Mitra)