The Union Cabinet on Friday approved the Clean Plant Programme (CPP), aimed at increasing the yield and productivity of horticulture crops in India. First announced in Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s interim Budget speech in February 2023, the CPP is also targeted at enhancing the quality of fruit crops across the nation. The Ministry of Agriculture has sought an allocation of Rs 1,765 crore for the programme. One half of this will be sourced from the budget of the Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH), while the other half will be in the form of a loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB). How will the CPP work? The programme has three main components geared towards helping farmers obtain virus-free, high-quality planting material (plants used for vegetative propagation) in order to increase crop yields and improve income opportunities. These are: * Development of nine Clean Plant Centers (CPCs) which will provide disease diagnostics and therapeutics, create mother plants to be sent to nurseries, and quarantine all domestic and imported planting materials intended for commercial propagation and distribution; * Enhancement of infrastructure, including the development of large-scale nurseries to facilitate the efficient multiplication of clean planting material — the mother plants obtained from the CPCs will be multiplied in nurseries and distributed to farmers; * Creation of regulatory and certification process to ensure thorough accountability and traceability in the production and sale of planting material. What is the need for the CPP? India is the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world after China. From 2013-14 to 2023-24, the area under horticulture crops has risen from 24 million hectares to 28.63 million hectares, and production has increased from 277.4 million metric tonnes (mt) to 352 million mt. India is also a major importer and exporter of fresh fruits. In the financial year 2023-24, India exported fresh fruits worth $1.15 billion, while it imported fruits worth $2.73 billion. With the rising consumption of fruits in the country, demand has specifically increased for planting materials of foreign apples, and “exotics” such as avocado and blueberry. According to sources, between 2018-20, the EXIM committee for import of planting material of fruit plants permitted the import of 21.44 lakh apple plants in 2018, which increased to 49.57 lakh in 2020. In 2018, permission was given to import only 1,000 avocado plants which increased to 26,500 in 2020. Similarly, permissions for the import of blueberry plants went up from 1.55 lakh in 2018 to 4.35 lakh in 2020. At present, the process of importing plants is very cumbersome, with imported plants having to be kept in quarantine for two years. The CPCs will cut this period down to six months, and thus make it easier for farmers to access disease free and genuine planting material for horticultural crops in India. The concept of CPCs is on the lines of projects in countries like the US, Israel, and the Netherlands.
