Promote horticultural farmers and aggregators as entrepreneurs and not as mere beneficiaries of the schemes, said Chief Secretary Gokul Chandra Pati while presiding over an executive committee meeting of the Odisha Horticulture Development Society here on Tuesday.
Principal Secretary, Agriculture, Rajesh Kumar Verma outlined the issues for discussions and Director, Horticulture, Sanjeeb Chadha presented the updates for the review.
Pati advised to diversify 30 per cent of agricultural land into horticulture, mostly from high and medium lands. The department was directed to work out a bankable scheme indicating interest subvention and credit guarantee provisions for financing of horticultural ventures under the Joint liability Group (JlG) approach so that small farmers can get bank finance. Secretary, Cooperation, Bishnupada Sethi along with Director, Horticulture were entrusted the reasonability of working out the scheme. The department was also asked to institute awards for best farmers with cash incentives.
Pati also advised the departments to work out training modules in various operations of horticulture like greenhouse management, plant care, orchard management integrated protein and nutrition management, cold chain management and agri-entrepreneurship. Both the departments were directed to list out 20 such skills and devise training modules through the OUAT and the KVK. It was decided to train around 10,000 progressive farmers and youths in these skills. last year, 1,406 youths were trained in three Horticultural Training Institutes at Khordha, Kandhamal and Kalinga against a target of 1,000.
The departments were also asked to register spawn producing units and enlist the mushroom cultivators. It was decided to promote establishment of cold storages with capacity of 100 MT or more through subsidised schemes. It was estimated a cold storage requires investment of Rs5 lakh, out which subsidy availability is 50 per cent. It was decided to float advertisement for establsi8ment such units.
A proposal for insurance coverage of crops under protected horticulture was also discussed, and definite proposals were initiated.
Farmers’ representatives present at the meeting in their opinion on shade-net cultivation said the demonstration done at the Deras centre of excellence has been quite encouraging and farmers have started adopting the method. They said shade-net cultivation of tomato has yielded around 4 lakh from half an acre of land.
An Annual Action Plan of Rs110 crore was approved at the meeting. The major components of the plan include upgradation of nursery, establishment of tissue culture units, production and distribution of vegetables, procurement of planting material, expansion of horticultural area, fruit cultivation, maintenance of fruit plantation, floriculture, vegetable cultivation, mushroom cultivation, organic farming, adoption and certification, frontline demonstration, human resource development, integrated post harvest management and establishment of marketing infrastructure.