India needs to almost double its horticulture output to nearly 700 million tonnes to meet the demand of Vikasit Bharat by 2047, said Tushar Kanti Behera, Director, Indian Institute of Horticulture Research (IIHR). Currently, India produces about 350 million tonnes of horticulture produce including fruits, vegetables and spices.
Behera said the estimated horticulture produce demand of 700 million tonnes by 2047 is based on the country’s projected population. The ICAR-IIHR, the premier research institute for horticulture crops in the country, expects to play a crucial role in meeting the projected demand by developing new high-yielding and climate-resilient varieties using new technologies such as genome editing while leveraging precision farming among others, he said.
The growth in horticulture output has surpassed food grains production about three years ago and is growing at around 8 per cent, almost twice that of agriculture growth in the country.
Behera said with limited land resources, the growth in output to meet the rising demand will be driven through increased in yields and productivity. While earlier the R&D focus used to be on developing high yielding varieties, in the changing climatic scenario, the focus has changed to developing varieties with climate resilience, insect resistance, processing traits and longer shelf life, he said.
COE on gene editing
IIHR is setting up a Centre of Excellence (COE) for genome editing in horticulture crops at its campus on the outskirts of Bengaluru with an investment of ₹30 crore to take up research in some crops including tomato, chilli, grapes, papaya and pomegranate among others. “We have already started the work on some 11 crops” he said addressing the media ahead of the three-day annual national horticulture fair that will start from February 27.
About 5 new crop varieties and three new technologies including leaf curl virus and root phytopthera tolerant chilli, high caretonoid watermelon and gummy stem blight resistant bottlegourd will be released at the national horticulture fair, which is expected to attract a lakh visitors.