Vegetable Statistics

Abstract

Horticulture is the fastest growing sector within Indian agriculture. There has been a perceptible change in the consumption pattern characterized by declining share of food grains and increasing share of non-food grain items in the consumption baskets particularly fruits and vegetables. Consequently, horticulture is set to assume a greater role and importance within the agriculture sector and eventually in the national economy. However, there is a serious problem concerning reliability of horticulture data which is one of the most critical requirements to facilitate systematic policy analysis and planning exercise. Multiple agencies are involved in producing horticultural data that often varies. This may perhaps be due to the complexities and methodologies of data collection in horticultural crops. It is not just the basic data like area, production or productivity but the whole gamut of related data like storage infrastructure, market arrivals, prices, exports etc is required to be collected and compiled to develop integrated data base which is extremely important in the present era of globalization and integration of markets. An attempt has been made in this bulletin to compile available statistics on vegetables grown in India and other countries in order to provide all information at one place. In addition to the latest available statistics on major vegetable crops from different sources, general information on Indian economy, agriculture and key indicators has also been included. The bulletin has been divided into 5 sections namely an overview, general information on Indian economy & agriculture, horticultural scenario, vegetable statistics at a glance and crop-wise vegetable statistics. We believe that the information compiled and presented in this bulletin could be of immense interest and use to various stakeholders. Information obtained/compiled from various organizations and sources is duly acknowledged. We express our sincere thanks to Dr. V. K. Bhatia, Director, IASRI, New Delhi for sharing the available data and his valuable guidance.