Horticulture Cluster Development: Central official calls for awareness among farmers

Anantapur: Dr Abhilaksh Likhi, additional secretary, Union ministry of agriculture and farmers' welfare reviewed the Horticulture Cluster Development Programme (HCDP) of National Horticulture Board here on Friday.

Anantapur has been selected as a pilot cluster under the HCDP programme. During the visit, Dr Likhi interacted with the stakeholders of the banana value chain from the cluster. While interacting with the banana growers he highlighted that the programme addresses the challenges of the entire value chain, including pre-production, production, post-harvest management, logistics, marketing and branding.

The HCDP is designed to leverage geographical specialisation and promote integrated and market-led development of horticulture clusters. He explained to banana growers the importance of good agricultural practices resulting in getting quality produce which would eventually translate into higher remuneration. He urged block-level horticulture officers to take a workshop with farmers on the Cluster Development Programme and make them understand its aspects and objectives.

Ministry of agriculture and farmers' welfare has identified 55 horticulture clusters, of which 12 have been selected for the pilot launch of the programme. The clusters of the pilot phase include Mahbubnagar (Telangana) for mango, Anantapur (AP) and Theni (TN) for banana.

"Banana cluster in Anantapur will benefit about 14,000 banana farmers and related stakeholders of the value chain and will handle approximately 7.5 Lakh metric tonne banana. With this programme, we aim to improve exports of the targeted crops by 20-25 per cent and create cluster-specific brands to enhance the competitiveness of cluster crops," he said.

Reviewing overall progress of the programme during interaction with state horticulture officials, Dr Likhi requested them to ensure that the programme gets implemented in a timely manner and a periodic meeting take place to review the ongoing activities under the programme.

Later, he visited Southern Region Farm Machinery Training and Testing Institute, Anantapur to explain to the farmers the use of drones in agriculture.

He said that the drone technology in agriculture had a tremendous potential in increasing consistency and efficiency of crop management, besides reducing the cost and also reducing the human exposure to hazardous working conditions. In the Union Budget 2022-23, the Centre announced that the use of Kisan drones would be promoted for crop assessment, digitisation of land records, spraying of insecticides and nutrients.

During his visit, Dr Likhi interacted with the director and staff of the institute and undertook visits to the various training and testing laboratories including the power tiller testing facilities for which the institute has been identified as testing authority in the country.