Covid-19 is impacted all sectors in economy, even agriculture is not exempted from that, that too horticulture were perishables crops is highly impacted. So all of you can use PPT for knowing main points.

1. IMPACT OF
COVID-19 ON
HORTICULTURE
SECTOR
Name : Raghava Segu
TamilNadu Agricultural University
MBA(AgriBusiness Management)
seguraghava44@gmail.com

2. INTRODUCTION- “Covid-19”
▪ Today we are living in unprecedented situation where countries are in shutdown,
industries locked, production get halted , trading's stopped, economy is flattening,
people are staying inside, flora and fauna got wisidom,overall the earth is “healing”
now.
▪ Covid-19 a invisible strain became a threat to whole world. Vulnerabilities done
by human beings to the nature is now paying off.
▪ Off course we should see it in both negative and positive perspective, things that
we neglected is getting exposed, it is giving a chance to learn the lessons from the
losses that are happening.
▪ We are human beings, we should think about surroundings that are happening
around us .

3. ROLE OF INDIAN HORTICULTURE SECTOR
▪ India is the fruit and vegetable basket of the world. It grows a variety of fruits and vegetables
and has huge production of both fruits and vegetables.
▪ India is the 2nd largest producer of both fruits and vegetables in the world after China.
▪ Largest producer of ginger and okra amongst vegetables & ranks 2nd in production of potatoes,
onions, cauliflowers, brinjal, Cabbages, etc.
▪ Amongst fruits, the country ranks 1st in production of Bananas (25.7%), Papayas (43.6%) and
Mangoes (including mangosteens and guavas) (40.4%).
▪ Grapes, Pomegranates, Mangoes , Bananas, Oranges account for larger portion of fruits
exported from the country while Onions, Mixed Vegetables, Potatoes, Tomatoes, and Green
Chilly contribute largely to the vegetable export basket.
▪ The major destinations for Indian fruits and vegetables are Bangladesh, UAE, Netherland,
Nepal, Malaysia, UK, Sri Lanka, Oman and Qatar.

4. CURRENT STATICAL DATA
(Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare Second Advanced Estimate (2018-19) of Area & Production of Horticulture Crops)
▪ Yield of top 5 producing & exporting crops:
Total Horticulture Production 2017-18 2018-19
Area(million Ha) 25.43 25.61
Production(million tonnes) 300.64 314.87
Total fruits production(2018-19) 97.38 mt
Total Vegetable production(2018-19) 187.36 mt
Onion 23.28 mt
Potato 52.96 mt
Tomato 19.66 mt
Spices 8.61 mt

5. IMPACT
▪ The unpredicted outbreak made huge impact both in supply and demand.
▪ Majorly two factors accounted high impact on horticulture, breakdown of
logistics and decrease in demand.
Following are the main factors that has impacted largely:
➢ Supply chain disruptions
➢ Shortage of labour
➢ Less market functioning
➢ Price fluctuations
➢ Lack of infrastructure facilities
➢ Break in trading activities

6. Supply chain disruptions
▪ Supply chain in India is diverse, widespread, highly scattered and disorganised.
▪ Supply chain is the life line of horticulture crops ,being perishable in nature the
shelf life of the produce is very short.
▪ Due to lockdown of nation , the transportation between inter-states and intra-
states get disrupted at beginning phase, even the government exempted for
essential commodities, bottlenecks in chain still being the burning issue.
▪ With more no.of halts in between, there is delay in reaching destinations. Due to
this bottlenecks, produce in on-board is get rottening without unloading them
because of transporting under uncontrolled conditions.
▪ If you see the percentage of freight transport in India, roadways is dominating
one accounting for 59%,railways 35%, waterways 6%, and airways <1%.

7. Shortage of labour
▪ Reverse migration, made huge hit to horticulture sector.
▪ Starting from end of March to first of week of June is the pick period for
harvesting rabi crops, and demand of horticulture crops is huge in these season.
▪ For harvesting , skilled labour is required because of shortage, most of the crops
get ripening in orchards without harvesting them, resulting quality deterioration.
▪ According to GOI data , around 263 million people are involved in agriculture
sector and of them ,more than half of them are agriculture labourers, these shows
how far the impact is.
▪ Farmers are ready to harvest , because of low labour availability they are lefting to
do, these is leading to throwing of produce on roads, and dumping into compost
pits

8. Less market functioning
▪ Initial period of lockdown there is no function of mandi’s across the country.
▪ Even after liberalizing the rules ,market are not functioning up to the mark,
situation at ground level is different, operating only with 50% operations.
▪ Active hours of mandi’s has been reduced for only 4 to 6 hours /day, and whereas
hotspot regions of outbreak government is allowing only for 2-3 days a week.
▪ Wholesalers and vendors are facing huge shortage in labour even they are
opening the markets, there are no labour to unload and produce strewn in and
around market.
▪ For example: CH.HIRA SINGH WHOLESALE VEGETABLE MARKET,
Azadpur, Delhi which is the Asia’s biggest wholesale fruits & vegetable market,
trading has come down to 50% and 40,000 daily labours in market lost income.

9. Price fluctuations
▪ There is panic bulk purchase at beginning , sellers utilized the situation and hiked
price up to 30-40% as the demand get increasing the price is changed instantly,
but the scenario is opposite for long perishable crops.
▪ After few days there is no demand for perishable goods , prices have fallen upto
15-20% due to shutting down of HORECA-Hotels, Restraunts and Caterings.
▪ Demand has destructed instead of B2B, the demand of B2C is increased so the
prices have fallen because of less engage of middlemen's.
▪ Now because of low harvesting , the supply decreased and demand increased
again lead to increase in price.
▪ In overall picture if you see the price curve seems like ‘U’ shaped curve.
(Price fluctuations in between February & march of different F&V in different locations shown in next slide)

10. Crop Month Avg wholesale
price/ Qty
Avg Retail
Price/Qty
Location
Banana Feb 2308 3685 Chennai
Banana March 2289 3584 Chennai
Grapes Feb 5628 6754 Nagpur
Grapes March 6394 6724 Nagpur
Apple Feb 5619 13792 Hyderabad
Apple March 7633 14722 Hyderabad
Tomato Feb 1421 2933 Chennai
Tomato March 1182 2610 Chennai
Potato Feb 2346 3646 Chennai
Potato March 2295 3642 Chennai
Onion Feb 2842 4275 Chennai
Onion March 2005 3232 Chennai

11. Cont..
▪ From the previous price table, if you see expect price of apple, remaining all
other commodities price had slump when compare to February and March.
▪ Another point is, wholesale price of commodities has major difference compare
to february and march, but in retail prices difference is less.
▪ Takeaways are farmers getting low prices compare to retail prices and other
thing is both the arrivals and demand has come down from february to march .
▪ Price fluctuation is high in vegetables, compare to fruits.

12. Lack of infrastructure facilities
▪ Non-availability of farm level post-harvest infrastructure in country is the major
drawback ,now the problem is eye opener for governments.
▪ Farm level collection centres are mostly absent; sorting, grading, washing,
packaging and other crop specific post harvest activities are virtually absent at
the farm proximate level.
▪ Presence of integrated cold chain infrastructure is low for horticulture products
in the state. There is very less use of refrigerated trucks even in case of highly
perishable products.
▪ Due to these reasons farmers are unable to store their in right time at right
place,in normal circumstances 25-30% of the fruits are wasted due to various
reasons and the value is about INR 44,000 crore per year. Now one can imagine
what will be loss in this worse situation.

13. Break in trading activities
▪ During financial year, 2019-20(April-December) India exported fresh fruits and
vegetables quantity of 19,90,380.83mt and worth of Rs.5,70,634.35 lakhs.
▪ The major destinations for Indian fruits and vegetables are UAE,
Bangladesh,Malaysia, UK, Netherland, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka & Nepal.
▪ Though India's share in the global market is still nearly 1% only, there is
increasing acceptance of horticulture produce from the country
▪ Exports of fruits & vegetables has declined 0.7% to US$ 0.29 billion in February.
▪ As India ranked 2nd in horticulture globally, and recent marginal shift in
cultivating horticulture from other crops they is estimation of high output,
because of shutdown in trading their will be huge impact on farmers and
economically to country

14. Modal- can make rainbow revolution
▪ Perishables are most valuable, among them fruits are more valuable whereas
vegetables are most perishable, both has their own economic qualities.
▪ There are two major market channels for F&V. One heads towards the retail
consumers and the other goes for processing. However, processing for fruits &
vegetables is just about 2%, compare the same to China-40%, US-65% and
Malaysia-83%.
▪ So to make those qualities into money, we have to take modal that ‘Verghese
Kurien’ has introduced to nation “Milk Cooperatives”, resulted revolutionary
change and placed India 1st in milk production globally.
▪ Government has to establish perishable collection clusters with value added
facilities like sorting, grading, packing etc., including village level cold storage
units.

15. Cont..
▪ So to make the modal easy government should give more power to FPO’s which
are playing a key role in this crisis, which are providing all agri inputs , storage,
and transportation facilities that avoiding distress sales and wastage.
▪ Government should come with a vehicle for development by
connecting (Production+ FPO+ Market).
▪ Supply chain should be small from farm to fork with regard to perishables, so
retailers should directly connect to farmers .
▪ Establishment of Seasonal Clusters will help a lot for example Mangos, grapes,
apples etc. which are seasonal based crops having high commercial value, and
connecting them with trading centres, retailers and processing clusters can add
high value to produce.

16. Cont..
▪ Establishment of postharvest
amenities in rural areas. Picture shows
the all.
▪ Due to larger supply chain and
intervention middlemen's this graph
shows how farmer losing the value.

17. Crisis gives us opportunities
▪ Every crisis gives opportunities, converting opportunities to key drivers matters.
▪ Government should act proactive and should come forward strategically to
mitigate the loss and to see crisis as open doors to make New India.
▪ The policies that enacted after independence are most fundamental, which are
providing the management to state governments this should change.
▪ Governments should concentrate on root level problems and to resolve them this
shows economic route to farmers.
▪ Waving of farm loans, giving subsides, offering free schemes will not solve the
farmers problems.
▪ Establishing new infrastructure , improving rural facilities, increasing and
sustainable use of natural resources, providing inputs and financial support will
make sense.

18. Future lies in horticulture
Because of:
▪ High value crops.
▪ Less area with high output.
▪ Low inputs with high output.
▪ Having high potential value addition.
▪ Highly nutritious and safe for health.
▪ High potential for foreign exchange earnings.
▪ Provide higher employment opportunities.
▪ Highly remunerative for replacing subsistence farming that can alleviate poverty
level.
▪ Change in eating habits globally after outbreak, shifting to F&V is good sign.

19. Below pictures shows the whole scenario.
Future demand
Trend in production
over the years
Production
Horticulture VS Food Grains

20. References
▪ Reading Material - Supply Chain Management in Agriculture-MANAGE, Hyderbad
▪ agmarknet.gov.in/PriceAndArrivals/commoditywisedailyreport3.aspx
▪ https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/coronavirus-fallout-fruit-farmers-stare-at-a-loss-
of-rs-7000-crore-amid-nationwide-lockdown-5107891.html
▪ https://pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=190153
▪ https://www.drishtiias.com/to-the-points/paper3/horticulture-sector-in-india
▪ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fruits-vegetables-fv-fpo-can-vehicle-development-mihir-mohanta/
▪ https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/agriculture/poor-post-harvest-storage-transportation-
facilities-to-cost-farmers-dearly-61047
▪ http://www.nhb.gov.in/OnlineClient/MISDailyReport.aspx
▪ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AE1jVqz6rw
▪ https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-cm/india-s-merchandise-exports-decline-1-7-in-
january-2020-120021401691_1.html
▪ http://agriexchange.apeda.gov.in/indexp/monthexport.aspx