In the liberalized agricultural sector vegetable production and processing playa greater role as there is greater demand from internal as well as external sectors of the economy, particularly for the processed products. Even though India ranks second in vegetable production, the growth rate of production in last decade is less than china, and only less than 2% of production is going to commercial processing chain. There are large disparities in area, production and productivity of vegetables among states. Future emphasis should be to devetop F1 hybrids in vegetable crops for yield, nutritional quality and export, to encourage vegetable production in unexploited areas, to reduce losses occurring during harvesting, storage and transport and improve shelf life of perishable commodities, to improve quality, to increase the processing capacity and actual utilization of processing units. Develop and rehabilitate rural infrastructure, encourage beneficiary participation by using user groups, integration of technology with legislative/regulatory/policy framework that enable greater private sector participation, especially in post-harvest value added activities including agro-processing. Support for post-harvest value addition activities through venture capital fund, joint government-industry Agri-business projects to utilize research and development facilities of government, Training of farmers in entrepreneur skills in Agri-business so that there will be greater vertical integration of farm production activities with agro-processing, Encourage NGO's for greater local level dissemination of knowledge and to reduce formal bureaucratic control.
Post harvest technology, processing unit, vegetable technology, future strategies
