India is primarily an agarian economy & is bestowed with diverse agro-climatic zones. With diverse climatic conditions found & large areas of rich fertile land, India has a lot of potential to become one of the leading producers of various agricultural products. By surveying it was found that it engages two-third of the total workforce, contributes to 26 % of the GDP & nearly one-sixth of the total export earnings. In 2012 agriculture contributed to 57% of GDP & but it was declined to 17% in 2013-14 but India topped the World Bank’s growth outlook for 2015-16 for the 1 st time with the economy having grown 7.5% in 2015-16 expected to grow 7.7-8.0% in 2016-17.Odisha is predominantly an agrarian state with agriculture .It provides employment & sustenance to more than 60% of the people & holds a key sector in the economic development of the state. Horticulture invariably improves the economic status of the farmers in Odisha. The earlier seasonal availability of fruits & vegetables has extended to all the year round, increasing per capita consumption & it has also played a significant role in women empowerment providing employment opportunities especially by creating SHG .Even with presence of abundant raw materials ,India lags far behind in ensuring food security for its own citizens & still India farmers continue to be among the poorest in the world. This state is a combined consequence of various factors such as lack of advanced scientific methods in agriculture, unavailability of modern machinery to the farmers & lack of financial support. Moreover storage & maintenance inefficiency leads to the tonnes of the food grains in the country being wasted as they rot in the storage godowns. Similarly uninformed decisions taken at various stages of cropping by farmers carried out entirely in traditional manner also lead to low yield. Poor efficiency in the marketing channels & inadequate marketing infrastructure are believed to be cause of lower income of the farmer. Indian farmers typically depend on the middlemen particularly in fruits & vegetable marketing. The producers & consumers often get a poor deal & the middlemen control the market , but do not add much value. There is also massive wastage, deterioration in quality as well frequent mismatch between demand & supply both spatially & over time. But still there is a lot of faith in country’s potential & strongly believe that making the right information available to our farmers regarding best practices & market prices having a set of people dedicated to guide them at every step, can make the farmers achieve much better yields ,higher profits, hence improve their conditions. A no. of such initiatives have been taken up by the government, NGOs & private sector in this direction as well.
