Potato, onion lift horticultural output; plantation crops hit

Horticultural crops output is expected to go up marginally to 313.85 million tonnes (mt) in 2018-19 compared with 311.71 mt produced in the previous year. Production of fruits and vegetables such as potato, onion, banana and citrus fruits will go up significantly, the third advance estimates released by the government said on Thursday.

Veg production

While the production of vegetables is projected to go up to 185.88 mt as against 184.39 mt in 2017-18, the fruits production will be 98.57 mt, which is 1.25 per cent more than last year’s output. Among vegetables, potato production is projected to increase by 3.4 per cent to 53 mt and onion by nearly 1 per cent to 23.48 mt, but a marginal dip of 1.8 per cent in tomato output will take the yield to 19.39 mt.

The production of banana is slated to go up by nearly 1 mt to 31.75 mt, while there will be a decline in the production of mangoes, which will come down to 20.8 mt.

Citrus fruits

Citrus fruits, on the other hand, is estimated to see a 5 per cent jump in yield to 13.2 mt. Apple production too is expected to top 2.5 mt as against 2.33 mt in 2017-18.

At 25.49 million hectares, the area under horticultural crops in 2018-19 remained more or less at the same as the previous year.

A huge drop in the production of coconuts has adversely hit the plantation crop output, which is projected to be around 16.37 mt as against 18.08 mt in 2017-18. Coconut production is slated to go down to 14.75 mt, which is nearly 10 per cent lower than last year’s 16.41 mt. Cashewnut production is also expected to be down by nearly 10 per cent this year.

Even though overall spices production will be marginally up this year at 9.22 mt, chillies production is heavily affected. Compared with 2.15 mt produced last year, the estimated production this year is 1.69 mt. Garlic production, on the other hand, is expected to be bumper one this time.

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