Department of Horticulture
Has 410 farms with an area of 15,732 acres spread all over the state.
The Department of Horticulture, Karnataka was established in 1965. It was set up to provide promote the cultivation of horticulture crops and assist the farmers by providing technical know-how, planting materials, creating pre and post harvest and marketing infrastructure through various schemes and research. The Department has its headquarters in Lalbagh, Bangalore.
The Department promotes almost all fruits, vegetables, flowers, plantation, medicinal and aromatic crops. “The important crops are mango, banana, grapes, sapota, papaya, citrus, pineapple, tomato, brinjal, potato, beans, peas, okra, beetroot, carrot, chilies, cabbage, cauliflower, capsicum, coconut, areca nut, cashew, cocoa, pepper, ginger, turmeric, vanilla, rose, tuberose, gladiolus, carnation, anthurium, aster, marigold, chrysanthemum, jasmine, sarpaganda, ashwaganda, citronella and lemon grass beside others,” avers Dr. G.K. Vasanthkumar, director. Dr. Kumar has done Ph.D. (Agriculture) in Agronomy. He has been with the Department of Horticulture for more than 32 years.
The Department promotes the use of waste and marginal lands in Karnataka. “The department provides assistance in the form of subsidy for planting various crops in waste and marginal lands owned by farmers. It provides assistance for developing dry orchards by planting perennial fruit plants, planting minor fruit plants like amla, sitaphal, ber, tamarind etc. Also assistance is given to the farmers for construction of water harvesting structures under National Horticulture Mission programmes and other state sector schemes. Assistance is also given to drip irrigation for effective use of water resources. However, the Department of Horticulture is not taking development on its own in marginal and waste lands,” avers Dr. Kumar.
Help in Marketing Products
The Department also helps the farmers in marketing their produce. Under co-operative sector HOPCOMS have been established to create direct marketing facilities to farmers. HOPCOMS Bangalore operates only in 5 districts of Karnataka – Bangalore Urban, Bangalore Rural, Kolar, Ramanagara and Chickaballapur. It has 295 retail outlets to market the produce of farmers and handling around 100 MTS per day.
“Besides this, the department has taken care to initiative to farm 17 district horticultural co-operative marketing and processing societies to procure and market horticulture produce. At the apex level, Karnataka Horticulture Federation is formed as a nodal agency to co-ordinate various activities,” maintains Dr. Kumar.
He further adds, “Under National Horticulture Mission the department proposes to provide 25% financial assistance i.e., Rs 100 crores for establishment of 4 wholesale terminal markets at Belagaum, Kolar, Mysore and Hassan. Apart from this the department is providing financial assistance up to of 25% as back ended subsidy to entrepreneurs for establishing infrastructure for marketing of horticultural produce.”
Under Rastriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, a total outlay of Rs 26.80 crores has been earmarked for a period of 4 years for phase wise modernization and strengthening of Karnataka Horticulture Federation and district HOPCOMS.
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