Horticulture Hub infra yet to become reality

Anantapur-Puttaparthi: Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s promise of transforming the district into a horticulture hub, given during 2014-19, didn’t materialise. During his visit to the district two months ago, CM Naidu reiterated to fullfil his promise by taking steps in the direction.

For the district to emerge as a horticulture hub, basic amenities like cold storages, warehouses and horticulture processing centres are needed.

The district has horticulture acreage of 1.71 lakh hectares, where mangoes, banana, papaya, sapota, guava, amla, pomegranate, watermelon, flowers, custard apples, grape plantations and other crops are being cultivated.

The district is far ahead than other districts in the acreage and production of horticulture fruits. But as of now there are no warehouses, cold storages, pack houses, ripening chambers or fruit processing plants and other infrastructure facilities.

Farmers Producers Organisations (FPO), a platform for marketing strategies, are also still a non-starter due to issues involved with the government.

Horticulture farmers, who are utilising government schemes for infrastructure building including construction of packing houses, are upset at the rigid specifications being imposed on them by Horticulture department. Farmers are indignant at Horticulture department for rejecting their applications being claimed for subsidy payments on flimsy grounds.

Recalling their past experiences with the department, they maintained that despite building pack houses as per specifications, subsidy payments were delayed due to minor deviations like absence of furniture, chairs and tables etc.

Ranganath, a farmer from Marthadu, recollecting his past experience criticised that his and other farmers’ applications are still pending just because a couple of tables and plastic tubs were not found along with the pack house equipment. Horticulture farmers demanded to know what was wrong if the pack house is used by farmers for multiple purposes and what if a few tools were not found in the pack house during non-season. He argued that what is wrong in using the pack house meant for mango or any other produce, in non-seasons.

The pack houses were sanctioned to farmers as part of infrastructure-building to give a boost to marketing the farm products. The pack houses prevent the exposure of produce to sunlight, which will make the produce to lose its quality apart from reducing shelf life. They are graded, neatly packed and if necessary, kept in controlled atmosphere like deep freezers or cold storages etc.

Farmers felt that establishment of collection centres, cold storages and development of e-marketing and setting up of processing units on the lines of Chittoor district would go a long way in the direction. If export markets are to be created, creation of awareness of farmers on grading of products, scientific packing methods and on the logistics of producing export-worthy products apart from farmer-friendly hassle-free norms.