Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh has emerged as the top producer of spice crops across the nation. Apart from these, the state has also secured the third rank in producing vegetables, fourth in flowers and fifth in fruits an official statement said.
According to the data acquired through the survey, a fivefold increase in the area producing horticulture crops has yielded a seven-fold rise in the produce in the last one and a half-decade. In 2006, the total area dedicated to horticulture crops was 4,69,00 hectares which have now increased to 23,43,000 hectares. Simultaneously, the produces have also scaled up to 340.31 LMT from 43.98.
The spice category which the state has topped collected 46.37 LMT on a cultivation land of 82 lakh hectares. In the National Statistics of Horticulture for the year 2018, Madhya Pradesh has contributed 1191.81 thousand metric tons to the total spice production of 8123.87 thousand metric tons in the country. This is 14.67 per cent of the country’s gross spice production, which is the highest in comparison to other states. Fruit cultivation has also seen a rise from 11.73 LMT to 82.44 LMT. The area of cultivation over a period of six decades has risen to 4,05,000 hectares. Meanwhile, the vegetable produce of 206.31 Lakh Thousand Metric tonnes has been recorded by the state agriculture department. The cultivation area increased from 1,96,000 hectares to 10,40,000 hectares