In a move to enhance farmers’ income through horticulture, the National Horticulture Board (NHB) on Monday launched the pilot phase of the Cluster Development Programme covering 11 States and UTs, including Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. The 12 clusters include Shopian (J&K) and Kinnaur (HP) for apple, Lucknow (UP), Kutch (Gujarat) and Mahbubnagar (Telangana) for mango, Anantpur (AP), and Theni (TN) for banana, Nasik (Maharashtra) for grapes, Siphahijala (Tripura) for pineapple, Solapur (Maharashtra) and Chitradurga (Karnataka) for pomegranate and West Jaintia Hills (Meghalaya) for turmeric.
Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Monday virtually launched the Horticulture Cluster Development Programme (CDP) in the presence of ministers of state Parshottam Rupala and Kailash Chaudhary. Senior officials of the ministry, including Abhilaksh Likhi, Additional Secretary, and Rajbir Singh, NHB Managing Director.
The Ministry has identified 53 horticulture clusters, of which 12 have been selected for the pilot project. Based on the learnings from the pilot project, the programme will be scaled up to cover all the identified clusters. These clusters will be implemented through Cluster Development Agencies (CDAs) which are appointed on the recommendations of the respective State/UT Government.
Regarding its reach and impact, Tomar said, “doubling farmers’ income is one of the biggest priorities of our government. The CDP will benefit about 10 lakh farmers and related stakeholders of the value chain. With this programme, we aim to improve exports of the targeted crops by approx. 20% and create cluster-specific brands to enhance the competitiveness of cluster crops.”