Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed today asked the state horticulture department to take necessary steps for improving both quality and crop yield to boost fruits export.
"The Horticulture Department needs to make a big push for popularising high-quality fruit plants to enhance export of fruits from the state. Our orchards need a complete makeover so that both crop yield and quality of fruit match standard benchmarks," Sayeed said here.
The Chief Minister said this while chairing a high-level meeting of the department.
Sayeed emphasised upon introduction of weather-based crop insurance scheme for all fruits, in particular apple in the wake of damage suffered by the horticulture sector in last year's floods.
"An effective mechanism has to be worked out for providing weather-based crop insurance, in particular to apple orchardists, so that some sort of financial security and risk cover is extended to them," he said.
He directed the Horticulture Department to expedite the modalities for providing insurance cover to the fruit growers, who remain vulnerable to weather vagaries.
The chief minister stressed upon import of high-density fruit plants from Europe for propagation and directed the department to ensure that disease-free plants are provided to fruit growers, only after those are quarantined and scientifically vegetated in the government nurseries.
He asked the department to focus on use of best practices and latest technologies in improving quality and yield of fruits.
He said establishment of two Centres of Excellence in Horticulture sector under Indo-Dutch Action Plan would sensitise the fruit growers about high-quality plants, micro-irrigation, high-tech green house technology, tissue culture and weather forecasting.
