Bitter Harvest

Despite record production, crippling inadequacies in infrastructure are making horticulture an unviable option for the Indian farmer.

- Shubham Shankdhar And Sandhya Dwivedi

Ratanlal, a marginal farmer from Rasoolpur village in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly district, is distraught. His cauliflower crop sold at the nearby Mirganj market at a rupee a kilo. To what end, then, does he toil, he wonders. “My wife and two children worked with me on the farm all day. We earned not even Rs 500 in all. Add to that the cost of seeds, urea, diesel, pesticide and transport; I didn’t even recover my investment,” rues Ratanlal whose farm, like most in the village, is just about an acre.

Rasoolpur has a hundred-odd farmers. More than 90 per cent of them grow vegetables and fruits. Potato, cauliflower, chilli, banana and onion. Not by choice, though. “Our farms are so tiny. If we grow paddy, wheat or sugarcane, what will we eat the year round?” asks Ratanlal. “Growing vegetables is labour-intensive, but the crop cycles are shorter.”

POINT OF NO RETURNS

Ratanlal’s despairing circumstance throws light on a peculiar crisis that has gripped Indian horticulture—abundant production and unremunerative harvests. While the country is producing more vegetables and fruits than ever before, farm income is dropping alarmingly. Agriculture ministry estimates released this year put horticulture production for 2017-18 at 311.7 million tonnes (MT), up 3.7 percentage points from the previous year and 10 percentage points higher than the average production of the past five years. In 201819, this is estimated to rise by 1 percentage point to a record 314.6 MT.