Vol. 11, Special Issue 8 (2022)

India is one of the largest producers of fruits and vegetables in the world. In year 1999-2000, 45496 thousand tonnes of fruits and 90831 thousand tonnes of vegetables were produced in the country. Recently, the horticultural crops are grown in the area of about 15.3 million-hectare, which is about 7percent of the total cropped area in India. The annual production of horticultural produce is estimated about 149.2 million tonnes, which is 18percent of the total agricultural production in India.

In the production of sugar, tea, milk, fruits and vegetables and rice, India ranks either first or second with a share of world production ranging from 10 percent to 30 percent. In India, Uttar Pradesh is one of the most important producers of horticultural crops. Presently about 3210517 MT fruits covering the area of 315089 hectare and 13842422 MT potato’s and vegetables covering the area about 688918 hectare arc produced in UP plains during 2008-09. Major fruits grown in UP (Plains) are Mango. Guava and Banana whereas in vegetable potato, peas and onion occupy the major area. Besides these mushrooms and flowers are also growing in a considerable quantity (Appendix-6). Other major fruit producing states are UP (Hills) Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Himanchal Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamilnadu. Guava is one of-the most important fruits grown in all over the world. It is now widely grown all over the tropics and subtropics and has become the most common in the newly introduced subtropical fruits in Israel. But, it originated in tropical America and it seems to have been widely found from Mexico to Peru. At present, major guava producing countries are Southern Asian countries, the Hawaiian Islands, Cuba and India. Guava is estimated to be the forth-important fruit crop after mango, banana and citrus, as far as area and production are concerned.