Year of Establishment:- 2013
MANDATE
- Conduct experiments to Prevent Post Harvest losses of Horticultural crops.
- To improve shelf life of fruits, vegetables & flowers.
- Assisting Post graduate & Ph.D students Research work on Post Harvest Technology.
Value Addition in Horticulture is the process in which a high price is realized for the same volume of a primary product, by means of processing, packing, upgrading the quality or other such methods.
Need for value addition in Horticulture
- To improve the profitability of farmers.
- To empower the farmers and other weaker sections of society especially women through gainful employment opportunities and revitalize rural communities.
- To provide better quality, safe and branded foods to the consumers.
- To emphasize primary and secondary processing.
- To reduce post harvest losses.
- Reduction of import and meeting export demands.
- Way of increased foreign exchange.
- Encourage growth of subsidiary industries.
- Reduce the economic risk of marketing.
Importance of Value Addition in Horticulture
- Horticulture deals a large group of crops having great medicinal, nutritional, health promoting values.
- India as second largest producer of fruits and vegetables, only 10 per cent of that horticultural produce is processed, but other developed and developing countries where 40-80 per cent produce is value added.
- Horticultural crops provide varied type of components, which can be effectively and gainfully utilized for value addition like pigment, amino acids, oleoresins, antioxidants, flavors, aroma etc.
- Post harvest losses in horticultural produce are 5 to 30 per cent which amounts to more than 8000 crore rupees per annum. If we subject our produce to value addition the losses can be checked.
- Horticultural crops are right material for value addition because they are more profitable, has high degree of process ability and richness in health promoting compounds and higher potential for export.