Horticulture hub still a far cry, feel farmers

Anantapur: Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has had reiterated his resolve to transform the district into a horticulture hub and even 3 years after he made the promise the concept of a horticulture hub has remained a non-starter. For the district to emerge as a horticulture hub, basic amenities like cold storages, warehouses and horticulture processing centres are the requirements to kick-start such a momentum.

Highlights:

• CM assurance of transforming the district into a horticulture hub yet to be realised even after 3 years
• District lacks basic amenities like cold storages, warehouses and horticulture processing centres
• It is far ahead of other districts in the acreage and production of horticulture fruits

The district has horticulture acreage of 1.71 lakh hectares. Mangoes, banana, papaya, sapota, figs, guava, amla, pomegranate, water melon, musk melon, arecanut, sweet oranges, flowers, custard apples, grape plantations, drumstick and dry chillies etc are spread in the above mentioned area.

Despite, having a large acreage of so many horticulture plantations and having a potential for exporting multiple fruits, the district is lagging behind in infrastructure facilities. The district is far ahead of 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 for producing value addition products.

The Farmers Producers Organisations (FPO), a platform for marketing strategies are also still a non-starter due to issues involved with the government. Unless the basic issues are addressed, the talk of a horticulture hub will only be a big farce on the farmers.Horticulture farmers, who are utilising government schemes for infrastructure building including construction of packing houses, are upset at the rigid specifications being imposed on the farmers by the department of Horticulture.

The farmers are indignant at the Horticulture department for rejecting their applications being claimed for subsidy payments on flimsy grounds. Despite building pack houses as per specifications, subsidy payments were being delayed due to minor deviations like absence of furniture, chairs and tables etc.

Rajasekhar, a farmer from Kotanka says that just because a couple of tables and plastic tubs were not found along with the pack house equipment, his and others farmers applications were kept pending. 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. These reasons should not be the basis for sanctioning or denying the privileges meant for farmers.

For a mango farmer except during his mango season, there will be no use for the pack house at other times. But, the farmer uses the facility for his other farm requirements and for the same reason should not be construed as misusing the facility. On the other hand, one should be happy that the facility is useful for multi-purposes, a section of the horticulture farmers maintained.

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

The farmers feel 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.

By Ravi P Benjamin