The most important problems being faced in the way of profitable fruit growing are: 1. High Initial Orchard Investment 2. Long Juvenile Period of Fruit Plants 3. Lack of High Quality Fruit Plants 4. Faulty Marketing System 5. Lack of Storage and Transportation Facilities 6. Lack of Processing Units 7. Perishable Nature of Fruits 8. Low Purchasing Power of the People.
Problem # 1. High Initial Orchard Investment:
The initial investment on establishment of new orchard is very high. It includes cost of plants, expenditure on layout, digging and refilling of pits, farmyard manures and insecticides and pesticides. The basic expenditure on planting of new orchard in different fruit plants is Rs. 25,000 to 50,000 per hectare.
It is still more in grapes where erection cost of training structure touches to Rs. 2.0-3.0 lakhs per hectare. The ordinary farmer having small land holding can’t afford to establish an orchard. There is strong need to implement schemes to provide liberal loan facility at lower interest rate for establishment of new orchards.
Problem # 2. Long Juvenile Period of Fruit Plants:
The major constraint in the way of increasing the area under fruit crop is long waiting period stretching upto 10 years in many cases, before a fruit grower can expect any income from an orchard. The permanent fruit crops like mango, pear and litchi comes into bearing very late and a small or middle level farmer cannot wait such a long period without substantial income. However, by planting filler trees like kinnow, plum, peach, papaya, phalsa and guava in the permanent trees like mango, litchi and pear, the economic loss of pre-bearing period can be compensated.
Problem # 3. Lack of High Quality Fruit Plants:
A healthy nursery plant is the foundation of an orchard and adequate availability of healthy plants is essential for a fruit industry. Use of poor planting material is the major constraint limiting higher production in most of the orchards. In number of government, as well as private nurseries proper care is not exercised in the selection of outstanding mother plants free of diseases. The poor grade plants propagated from these mother trees are distributed in large number.
These inferior trees become permanent liabilities to the growers as any package of intensive cultural practices would not be able to change their inherent poor production potential. The fruit plants purchased from private nurseries and footpath sellers prove to be a very expensive investment in the long run because these plants are generally from poor strains. The growers come to know about the yield and quality of the fruit after several years when the plants start bearing.
Citrus plants supplied to the growers are very often infested with citrus canker, citrus scab, leaf miner and citrus psylla, mango with vegetative malformation, peach with root-knot nematode. The citrus plants which can be infected with virus and virus like diseases through insect vectors in the nurseries are propagated by the Government as well as the private nurseries without adequate checks.
Regular and uniformly bearing disease – free plant material should replace the existing ones. Trees of outstanding merits of all the popular varieties of important fruit crops should be identified for large scale clonal propagation and distribution to the growers.
Problem # 4. Faulty Marketing System:
The marketing of fruits in India is the most sorry aspect of fruit industry. The lack of marketing facilities is a big hurdle in the expansion of horticulture. The fruit crop is auctioned by the growers to the middle man who earn better profit from this produce.
To produce and to market fruit are very different and yet less understood aspects. Usually our farmers are good producers but they are ill adept at marketing methods. The most common way is to sell the fruit crop as given in the Fig. to the fruit contractors who are financed by the commission agents located in big city markets. Contractor generally does not pay to the farmer more than 35 per cent of the crop value.
Thus about 65 per cent of the crop value is shared by the middlemen. Wholesalers purchase the fruit from commission agents and finally the fruit is given to the retailers for selling it to the consumers. It is a very lengthy procedure and cost much more to the consumer.
It would seem very simple to suggest that grower should bring his produce to the market and sell it himself and increase his margin of profit. A few individual who might have or may try this approach have to struggle very hard against a well entrenched system which has been exploiting the horticultural producers for very long time. So, considering this, there is needs to develop Apni Mandi or Cooperative system of marketing.
Problem # 5. Lack of Storage and Transportation Facilities:
The post-harvest losses occur 20-30 per cent in most of the fruits. These losses take place due to poor availability of eliminating field heat facilities. After harvest, the fruits need to be transferred to cooling units within half-an hour. Due to poor cold storage and controlled atmospheric storage facilities, the losses further increase.
The present system of transporting fruits in India is in-efficient and highly injurious to the fruit trade. Roads connecting the orchards with the terminal markets are poor, vehicles operating on roads are multipurpose conveyances and do not protect the fruit adequately from damage. Railways have so far taken a negligible part in the development of fruit transportation. There is strong need to introduce fleet of refrigerated carriers.
Many cooling units have come up in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. Cold chambers and ripening chambers has been established in few fruit markets in big cities by Mandi Board, Punjab to cater the need of the fruit growers.
Still there is need to establish more cooling and ripening facilities in various fruit markets and fruit zones. In addition to these, the growers’ cooperatives have set up their own cold storage units. The availability of refrigerated containers and their accessibility have helped to maintain the cold chain. The State Govt. should set more cooling units to enhance the shelf life of the fruits for considerable length of time.
Problem # 6. Lack of Processing Units:
No worth-while industry can be developed without creating adequate processing facilities. The worlds over fruits are either consumed fresh or they are processed into various products. In certain fruit crops like grapes and peach about 90 per cent of the total produce is processed.
For every fruit the list of processed products is long. The processing industry for horticultural crops is the need of the day. Thus horticultural development cannot be conceived without active participation of processing industry. In sub-tropical and tropical climate 20-30 per cent of the fruits produced are wasted. If there were industries to process this waste, it would generate many useful byproducts.
Available varieties of citrus, mango, litchi, grapes, guava, papaya, pineapple, banana, pear, peach, plum, ber and aonla can be processed into various forms for which there is an insatiable domestic and foreign market. At present, the fruits are processed at very limited scale in India. Only a few numbers of processing units are working in different states. The processing industry may preferably be established in the public and private sectors with proper safeguards for the interests of the producers.
Problem # 7. Perishable Nature of Fruits:
Most of the horticultural produce is highly perishable because of high water content. In spite of very heavy losses, very little work has been done on post-harvest technology of horticultural crops. There is an urgent need to develop appropriate on-farm post-harvest handling and storage systems suitable for different commodities and agro-climatic situations and to standardize packaging, transportation and handling systems, development of new processed and economic utilization of processing wastes.
Problem # 8. Low Purchasing Power of the People:
The fruits are sold at very high cost in the markets. Low income and middle income group has low purchasing power and do not purchase the fruits regularly. The different fruits are available at very high rates e.g. apple Rs. 80-150/kg, grapes Rs. 80-100/kg, Mosambi Rs. 60-100/dozen, Mandarin Rs. 50-80/kg, banana Rs. 50-60/dozen, pomegranate Rs. 100-150/kg, mango Rs. 50-80/kg, sapota Rs. 50-70/kg, soft pear Rs. 60-80/kg and papaya Rs. 30-40/kg. Under such circumstances, the fruits are not within the range of ordinary consumer.
The marketing system of the fruit is defective and middleman is getting more profit out of the growers produce. There is a strong need for developing the co-operative system of marketing, so that the fruit growers get decent return of their investment. Also, the production of fruits has to be increased by putting more area under fruits with a view that the fruit should be available at reasonable price in the market.