Market vulnerabilities and potential of horticulture crops in India: With special reference to top crops

India is the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world, contributing about 9.3 per cent share of total world production. In 2020–21, the production of horticultural crops has been pegged at a record 326.6 million tonnes (MT) which is more than total foodgrain production. The production of vegetables, especially tomato, onion and potato has increased significantly over the years, making India the second largest producer of all the three vegetables in the world. Increase in production of TOP crops are mainly due to increase in area while productivity is stagnant. Horticulture is increasingly recognised as a sunrise sector, owing to its potential to raise farm income, provide livelihood security and earn foreign exchange through export. However, marketing of horticulture faces major problems like large post-harvest loss, lack of infrastructure development, price seasonality and volatility, etc. In this paper, we try to understand trends in overall production, price volatility and issues related to marketing of horticulture produce with special emphasis on TOP crops. Historical price volatility measurement of TOP crops suggest that price volatility is highest among the onion followed by tomato while price seasonality is highest in tomato. As potato has the highest storage capacity, it has lowest volatility among the TOP crops. Horticulture has been recognized as one of the rapidly growing and evolving sectors having the potential to lead us to our goal of doubling farmer's income by 2022 through backward and forward linkages. Unless the increase in production is met with sizeable increase in cold storage capacities and transportation to the consumer base, the farmers will not be able to receive their fair share of income. Government of India has taken various initiatives to address the problems pertaining to horticulture sector like Operation Green, Agriculture Infrastructure Fund, PM Kisan SampadaYojana, etc.