Horticulture Production

Kutch produces varieties of fruits. The region exhibits its monopoly in India in production of fruit crops such as dates. It produced 99 percent of Gujarat’s dates in 2000-01. In the same year it was also ranked 4th in both production of papaya and coconut among the districts in Gujarat. Moreover, Kutch produced more than 6 percent of the chiku as the 6th largest producer in Gujarat. Pomegranate, guava, mango, citrus fruits and banana are other important fruit crops in the region.

Farmers in the region are also concentrating on mango production recently. Extensive mango orchards along with palm trees can be seen in the vicinity of Anjar, Mundra and Mandvi. Trends in fruit production during 1996-97 and 2000-01 exhibit fluctuations at various levels and at different point of time. Overall production was low in 1996-97, while in 1997-98 it was in its peak with at least two fold increases in production of the major fruit crops. The trend for the important crops again saw a downwardly movement in the next two years, while in 2000-01, it again found an upwardly momentum.

But an interesting picture immerses when considered production of fruits per cultivator and compared with the state level figures. Production in kg per cultivator provides overall intensity of farming of a specific crop. In date production, intensity in Kutch is obviously the highest. But interestingly in the cases of papaya, mango and in chiku, production per cultivator is far higher than that of Gujarat.

Mango is an important fruit crop being cultivated in Kutch. Mango is mainly cultivated in Bhuj, Anjar, Mandvi and Nakhtarana Taluka in Kutch.”Kesar” is the main cultivated in these areas.

The mango tree starts giving the fruit after 3(three) years and crop of additional areas in last three years are yet to come. The growth story of increase in production will be continued in a years to come. It is also worth noting that 50% area of Mango in Kutch has been developed using modern system of micro irrigation “Drip irrigation” to optimize the use of water in this water scarcity areas.

Kutch has added advantage of proximity and easy availability of refrigerated containers at Kandla Port and Mundra Port for making export to Gulf countries and Europe as against other Kesar Mango producing areas like Junagadh and Valsad. The export of Kesar Mango is increased significantly and there will also be a potential for setting up of small/medium scale mango processing unit in future to manufacture Mango pulp and other mango based food products.

State Government has also focused their efforts in adoption of high-tech agriculture for date palm farming in the form of development of tissue culture plants for making available disease free quality planting materials for production of improved quality of date fruits in Kutch. Due to suitable agro climate conditions for date palm in many areas of Kutch, it is expected to produce better results in next 4 to 5 years period.

The real growth has started after 2005. Production of Mango and Dates are increased manifold as compared to the production figures of 2000-01. Mango and Date usually start giving the fruit after three years from the year of plantation. There are huge land under plantation of mango and date in recent two years and additional production of the same will be available in years to come. The production figures of current year are also conservative and more lucrative future outlook is not reflected.