Fruit and vegetable production in the country can touch 355.25 million tonnes (MT) in 2023-24, according to the first advanced estimates of area and production of horticultural crops released by the Union Agriculture Ministry on Thursday. The area of production will be 28.77 million hectares. The final estimates for 2022-23 stand at 355.48 MT in 28.44 million hectares. In 2021-22, the horticulture production was 347.18 MT from 28.04 million hectares.
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The data for 2022-23 shows a 2.39% (8.30 MT) increase in production over that of 2021-22. “An increase in area of 1.41% or 0.40 million hectares is observed in 2022-23 (final estimates) over 2021-22,” the Ministry said.
Fruit production is estimated to be 110.21 MT in 2022-23 (final estimates), mainly due to increases in production of apples, bananas, grapes, mangoes and watermelon. Production of vegetables has increased from 209.14 MT in 2021-22 to 212.55 MT in 2022-23. “This is mainly contributed by increase registered in all vegetables except Chillies (Green), Onion, Radish, Tapioca and Tomato,” the government release said.
The production of onions in 2022-23 is estimated to be 302.08 lakh tonne compared to 316.87 lakh tonne in 2021-22. For potatoes, the production estimates in 2022-23 are around 601.42 lakh tonne, compared to 561.76 lakh tonne estimated for 2021-22. For tomatoes, the production in 2022-23 could be around 204.25 lakh tonne, compared to 206.94 lakh tonne estimated for 2021-22.
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In the first advance estimates for 2023-24, the production is estimated to be about 355.25 MT, which is less than the estimates for 2022-23. “An increase in area of 1.15% or 3.27 lakh hectares is observed in 2023-24 (first estimate) over 2022-23 (final estimate),” the government said. “The production of fruits expected to reach 112.08 MT, mainly due to increases in production of Banana, Mandarin and Mango. Production of Vegetables is envisaged to be around 209.39 million tonnes. Increase is expected in production of Cabbage, Cauliflower, Pumpkin, Tapioca, Tomato and other vegetables,” the Centre added.
While the production of tomatoes is expected to increase by 1.93% over the previous year’s numbers, the production of onions is expected to be around 254.73 lakh tonne, much less than the 302.08 lakh tonne of last year. Production of potatoes in 2023-24 is also expected to be lesser at around 589.94 lakh tonne compared to around 601.42 lakh tonne last year.
