ICAR plans to push fruit production 40% in five years

Horticulture is emerging as an effective tool for achieving both, 4% agricultural growth for the country and ensuring nutritional security for a large population. Hence, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) is planning to increase the fruit and vegetable production by 40% in next five years.

ICAR is visualizing this growth through technology backing and a planned initiative of National Agriculture Resource System (NARS) with support from State Agriculture Universities (SAUs).

The council had launched 15 inter-institutional consortium projects and five 'Challenge' programmes.

ICAR was aiming to increase the fruit production from existing 251 million tonnes (MT) to 350 MT in next five years.

It is a big target as country achieved a ten times growth from 25 MT to 250 MT from 1950-51 until 2012. And now we want a 40% growth in horticulture to sustain the required agriculture growth.