The Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has prepared the Horticulture Cluster Development Programme (CDP), for which a meeting was held under the chairmanship of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Narendra Singh Tomar for its proper implementation.
Minister of State Shri Kailash Chaudhary participated virtually in the meeting. In the meeting, Shri Tomar told the concerned officials that the main objective of the government is to promote the Agriculture sector in the country and to increase the income of the farmers by giving them a reasonable price for their produce, so the interest of the farmers should be paramount in the center of any programme/scheme.
The meeting was informed that the Cluster Development Programme has a great potential to transform the entire horticulture ecosystem by creating last-mile connectivity with the use of multimodal transport for efficient and timely evacuation and transportation of horticulture produce.
The CDP will also create cluster-specific brands, while helping the economy, to integrate them into national and global value chains, thereby providing higher remuneration to farmers.
The CDP will benefit around 10 lakh farmers and related stakeholders along the value chain. The CDP aims to improve exports of targeted crops by about 20% and create cluster-specific brands to enhance the competitiveness of cluster crops. A lot of investment will also come in the horticulture sector through CDP.
Union Agriculture Secretary Manoj Ahuja, Joint Secretary Priya Ranjan, Horticulture Commissioner Shri Prabhat Kumar along with officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and National Horticulture Board (NHB) were also present in the meeting.