Horticulture Farmers in Lohit District of Arunachal Pradesh: Issues & Challenges

Over the years, horticulture has emerged as one of the potential agricultural enterprises in accelerating the growth of economy. Its role in the country’s nutritional security, poverty alleviation and employment generation programmes is becoming more important day by day. It offers not only a wide range of options to the farmers for crop diversification, but numbers of agro-industries which generate huge employment opportunities are also coming up. In spite of all the efforts, horticulture farmers or growers of the study district are facing lot of constraints in different areas which hamper the working environment of horticulture farming. The key difficulties are related to farmers are finance, marketing, labour, storage, maintenance, education and so on, which are elaborated below.


Introduction
The horticulture sector of India is a newly evolve & develop sector for the rural people to get themselves employed for earning a decent livelihood.These sectors encompass a wide range of cultivation such as fruits, vegetables, plantation crops, medicinal plants and spices.Again, the horticulture sector can be classified as involvement of large, medium and small growers of products in term of area coverage and production.Looking into the growing numbers of rural poor people involved in this sector there is an urgent need that Government of India should provide and support the growers by implementing central, state and district schemes and programmes.The Government supports will make aware the horticultural plans and programs, mission and objectives, target and strategies to provide excellent opportunities in raising the income, employment and living standard of the farmers.The Government horticulture department in all parts of India has to perform and execute in making available the Govt.supports from time to time.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:-
1. To study the basic problems faced by the farmers of the study district.2. To bring out the issues that will help in decision making for the Government in improving the horticulture sector.

Major Issues of the horticulture farmers
The major issues or problems faced by the horticulture farmers of the study district are given below:-

Problem of finance:
It is one of the major problems faced by the growers or farmers of study district.It is observed that the finance is the main factor which decides the ability to take up horticulture farming as their occupation.On the other hand the existing farmers too face the same problem of lack of finance led to difficulties in procurement of more seeds/plants, payment of wage to labour, maintenance of farm, development of land for cultivation etc. if the farmers invest their capital in small amount in near future, they will not have finance for further expansion and other purposes, it's the prima-fiche that maximum of grower are going through.
. The problem of finance will lead to evolved in other problem and as a whole farmer of study district will be hamper for the causes of finance.

Problem of Marketing:
Most of the farmers in the district have faced the problem of marketing of their horticultural products.The growers of horticulture crops basically find it very hard to sell off their produce to the ultimate customers and as a result sell it to the traders that with unwillingly.Due to absence of a proper marketing policy and channel to assist the farmers of the district, the productivity of the study is being affected.The marketing problems arises mainly due to pricing method of product, lack of buyer, nonbranding of products, distribution channel etc.Therefore, the marketing of horticulture produce lack the modern technique of selling off the products in a systematized way.

Problem of labour:
Another main constraint in the cultivation of horticulture farm is non availability of labour in the study district.As response by the respondents that due to the shortage of labour in the area, it's very hard to take care of horticulture crops during the period of pre and post-harvesting.The area, production and productivity of horticultural crops are totally depending on the work force of the farmers or growers.The majority of farmers are not in a position to employ labour in their field due to non-availability of labour.
Therefore, the growers of horticulture crops employ their family members in the field for maintenance and other purposes.

Problem of storage:
The horticulture crops after post-harvesting have to be store in some preservative and safe place from spoilage and sold them at a high profit margin.In the case of horticulture crops such as orange and pineapple the growers sell it to the traders or buyers from the plant only.The majority of farmers stated that they do used only traditional way of storing their horticulture produce.
Therefore, it can be said that maximum of farmers are unaware of the modern method of storing and need of cold storage in their district

Problem of Education:
Education plays an important role in every walk of life for an individual.Lack of education among the sample beneficiaries is one of the problems of study district.Due to this the farmers are not in position to know more about the horticulture sector in the district Lohit.Thus, as a result the farmers are not approaching the horticulture department with regard to any kind of support and help for their horticulture farm.So, in addition to this the lacks of education make the farmers less respond to modern technologies and other advancement which are required for proper development of horticulture sector.
Therefore, to equip the farmers with all this modern techniques and technology, proper training and motivational campaigns should be provided from the side of state and central Government.

Problem of maintenance:
The growers or farmers of horticulture crops in the study district find it hard to maintain their farm such as boundary fence, medicine to the plants, cleaning up of unwanted plants and grasses etc.The proper and systematic looking after the horticulture crops will yield huge return in term of production, productivity and income of farmers of the Lohit district.
Therefore, the Government should provides aid to farmers the required pesticides to kill all the insects and other so that production can be maintained.

Problem of Know-How:
Know-How means the process and procedure of cultivation of horticulture crops.It is almost found that some of the growers don not have the idea and knowledge of planting the plants or nurseries in a systematic way, medication of plants etc., which as a result hamper in the productivity of horticultural crops.Sometimes, due to lack of knowledge of farming the plant get spoiled or die up for the cause of not planting as per required method.
Therefore, it's a very serious problem in the part of grower to take adequate care to have the knowledge of first hand information on the method and techniques for planting of horticultural crops.

Problem of technology:
In today's modern world, technology plays a major role in growth and development of all sectors of a nation.The farmer of the study district is facing these problems because they are unaware or not in a position to used the latest modern technology.It was found that majority of farmers are using traditional way of cultivation in their farm which as a result create obstacle in the progress of growth and development.
In order to compete or increase the scale of area, production and productivity the growers of horticulture products should start to introduce modern methods and technology.

Problem of interaction:
The interaction denotes individual to individual communication or individual to group communication in various forums such as officials visit to district horticulture office, workshop, trade fair, seminar, kisan mela exhibitions etc.It is observed that some of the sample growers are not attending any programs initiated by the district, state and central Government.Farmer's interaction will help them to acquire knowledge and skills as well as share their ideas and experiences on their horticultural practices.
Therefore, the farmers can solve some of their issues or problems on horticulture farming through interaction with Govt.officials, training and visit to other successful/progressive farmer's farm for better understanding and motivation.
Beside, these there are the some other minor issues that act as obstacle in the performing of horticulture production are road connectivity, market research, transportation & communication, family • Email: editor@ijfmr.com

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Volume 5, Issue 5, September-October 2023 4 members support etc. Therefore, Government developmental agencies and public should extend their cooperation and coordination to overcome all these problems.

CONCLUSION
Horticulture sector is one of the main sectors which can be added as a backbone of rural India.The growth and development of horticulture cultivation in term of farmer's participation, trader's transaction, demand & supply of horticulture products, area coverage, increasing amount of production and productivity has been realizing by the Government of India and as a result increase the plan-wise share in five year plan especially from 10 th to 12 th five year plan of India.Development of horticulture activities as an indicator towards employment generation, increasing income and improve standard of living of rural people.It should be given high/equal priority along with agriculture sector of India.
The horticulture sectors have gain much importance in the bifurcation of horticulture activities from agriculture and the establishment of National Horticulture Board which being sea changes in term of plans & programmes, implementation, coverage of area & production in all over of India for the better upliftment of rural economy.This sector is also providing quality and quantity of horticultural products such as fruits, vegetable, species etc. to larger section of society and market in India as well as outside India.
Therefore, the progressive horticulture growers, local bodies, private agencies and Government of India together as a stakeholder of horticulture sector is finding a way to overcome the issues and challenges and give a better direction for overall growth and development as a whole.
It is explained with the co-operation and co-ordination of Government, developmental agencies and public.The horticulture sectors will play a more positive role to develop the rural economy in study district in particular and the country in general.