Anantapur to become the Fruit Bowl of India: Payyavula Keshav

AP Govt. to promote brand Anantha as Horticulture growth engine: AP Finance Minister Payyavula Keshav

Anantapur to become the Fruit Bowl of India: Payyavula Keshav

End to End solutions from Nursery to Marketing to be the strategy: Payyavula

Handri-Neeva canal widening to be completed within one year

AP Finance Minister asks IT professionals to invest in horticulture in their villages 

Anantapur Horticulture Conclave to be a regular Annual Event : AP Spl CS for  Agriculture & Horticulture Budithi Rajasekhar

Gross Value Addition for Horticulture in Anantapur to be taken to 25% from the current 9%

7 MoUs signed , 11 Organisations given awards for their work in helping horticulture

ANANTAPUR, Feb 5: The Andhra Pradesh Government will provide policy support to make Anantapur District the country's Horticulture Hub, with 25% of the State's GVA by 2027, said State Finance Minister Payyavula Keshav on Wednesday.

Inaugurating the First Anantapur Horticulture Conclave in the presence of several top-level officials and industry representatives on Wednesday, Mr. Keshav said that the district had exported more than 1 lakh tonnes of banana recently to Iran through Container Corporation of India train rakes and a similar marketing push will be given for five other horticulture products also. Looking at the response to the conclave, the Minister declared that it would be an annual event.

The need of the hour was providing end-to-end solutions for horticulture produce from nursery to marketing stage, which will make Anantapur (the Fruit Bowl of the State) contribute 25% to State GVA (Gross Value Addition) as part of the Swarna Andhra 2047, said the Finance Minister. Helping companies invest in logistics, cold chain and farmers’ support systems will give an impetus to this vision, he remarked.

The Finance Minister has said that the Chief Minister of AP Mr Nara Chandrababu Naidu is very keen to develop Rayalaseema and Anantapur as Horticulture hub and Government will take up the widening of the Handri-Neeva Canal immediately during the current agriculture season so that all the 12 motors can be operated and more cultivable lands can be given irrigation water, said Mr. Keshav and promised the farmers to complete the project within next 12 months.

AP Special Chief Secretary of Agriculture and Horticulture Mr B. Rajasekhar in his address said that there were many challenges in achieving the dream of making Anantapur as fruitful bowl of India and as major horticulture hub but the government was determined to overcome all that. The per hectare banana yield was 65 MT in Anantapur, which was very close to 70.2 MT in Turkey, the world’s best. Maintaining the supply chain, improving the product quality and packaging along with developing value-addition were the immediate necessities for the Horticulture sector to reach its desired target. The post-harvest losses were 15% to 20%, which had to be brought down 9%, he added.

The Union Government and State Government were giving a push to 11 priority crops in 24 clusters, out of them six - banana, Dry Chilli, Sweet Orange, Tomatoes, Mango and Dragon Fruit were in Anantapur, said Mr. Rajasekhar. He also said that Anantapur Horticulture Conclave to be a regular Annual event on par with Bangalore Horticulture Festival. 

Anantapur District Collector Dr Vinod Kumar, V has said in his key note address in the inaugural session that the aim was to make Anantha Horticulture produce a Global Brand, for which MoUs were signed with seven companies during the Conclave for various aspects of improving productivity of identified horticulture crops. He said support will be provided in the pre-harvest, production and post-harvest stages to convert the Horticulture Hub to the Horticulture Engine of GVA growth. 
The current contribution in terms of the value of various horticulture crops grown in the district was: Banana (1204 cr); Dry Chilli (1205 cr) Sweet Orange (1562 cr) Tomatoes (997 cr) and Mango (567 cr), said the Collector and reiterated that the aim was to increase an additional 25000 hectares of horticulture cultivated area as part of Swarna Andhra and Swarna Anantha and production from 25 lakh MT to 29 Lakh MT.
Others who participated included former Minister and present Govt Whip Mr Kalava Srinivasulu, former Minister and present Rapthadu MLA Mrs Paritala Sunitha, and current MLAs of Singanamala Ms Bandaru Sravana, Kalyandurg MLA Mr Amilineni Surendra Babu , Guntakal MLA Mr Jayaram, and Tadipatri Municipal Chairperson Mr JC Prabhakar Reddy, CEO of AP Food Processing Mr Sekhar Babu and host of other dignitaries, NGOs, FPOs and Horticulture farmers. 

The MOUs were signed with seven companies, which included: Micro Algae Solutions, Siddhartha Cold Storage, Kousuri Bajaj Agro, Green Gurukulam, Agro Life Science Croporation and Puro Natural.

Eleven institutions and individuals were given awards for their services to horticulture sector in the district, which included: Simhadri Raghavendra of Elite Technologies, Y.V. Malla Reddy of A.F. Ecology Centre, B.C. Nirmala of CARD NGO, S. Boyapati of Avani Farms, Digital Greens, Srikrishna Impex, and best farmers G.D. Karthik (Mango), Raja Babu (Sweet Orange), Chandra Naik (Tomato), K. Chowdhary (Chillies) and R. Shankar Reddy ( Banana).

Joint Collector Mr Shiv Narayan Sharma, DFO Mr Vignesh, Assistant Collector Ms B. Vinuthna invited the guests.

Stalls installed by the various companies on horticulture development and latest innovations were very attractive and useful to the farmers (EOM)