No increase in area of vegetable farming in last 10 yrs

Despite incentives to promote vegetable farming, the total area of vegetable cultivation has not increased in the last 10 years.

The state’s annual vegetable consumption is pegged at `3,000 crore, while the domestic production is nominal.

The government is spending huge amounts to promote new farming practices like terrace farming and climate controlled green-house farming in urban and semi-urban areas.

Yet, and despite increase in prices, there is no let-up in the state’s dependence on neighbouring states for its vegetable requirements.

“Production from the hi-tech farming and terrace farming in urban areas can’t be quantified as it is nominal when compared to large-scale commercial production.

We aim at bringing an attitudinal change among the people to vegetable cultivation and their consumption patterns.

Though production is insufficient, people prefer to use home-grown pesticide free fresh vegetables,” said VV Pushpangadan, CEO of the vegetable and fruit promotion council.

During the last 10 years, the area under vegetable cultivation has not increased from the base figure of 40,000 hectares.

“This is because when new people enter the field, many quit the scene citing huge losses. The only profitable cultivation in the state is banana farming.

As vegetables are highly perishable and the harvesting time is limited, effective intervention is needed to support the farmers in getting good prices,” Pushpangadan added.

Meanwhile, in an effort to boost large-scale vegetable cultivation, VFPCK plans to expand the farming area to 3,000 hectares this year. “We plan to bring 20,000 more farmers to vegetable farming through Karshaka Samithis,” said Pushpangadan.

It is also pointed out that vegetable farming can be a profitable business for big companies which can afford high investment. “A majority of vegetable farmers have 50 cents to one acre of land.

Like in other states, big companies can invest in setting up large-scale vegetable farms which will help in increasing the production,” he said.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/190221" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-0776300b9e40c829434ee930383410ee" value="form-0776300b9e40c829434ee930383410ee" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85571505" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.