The Asian Development Bank (ADB), headquartered in Manila, approved a US$130 million loan to India to boost agricultural productivity and promote horticulture to enhance farmers’ income in Himachal Pradesh.

Rajat Kumar Mishra, additional secretary, of the Department of Economic Affairs and Takeo Konishi, country director of ADB’s India Resident Mission signed the agreement on the Himachal Pradesh Subtropical Horticulture, Irrigation, and Value Addition Project.

The project interventions will help increase the income and resilience to the climate change effects of at least 15,000 farm households across 7 districts of the state namely Bilaspur, Hamirpur, Kangra, Mandi, Sirmour, Solan, and Una. These households have stopped farming or have reduced their farming areas because of a lack of irrigation facilities and crop damage by wild and stray animals.

It will also Improve on-farm irrigation and water management in about 6,000 hectares of farmland by rehabilitating or building new irrigation schemes and strengthening the capacity of WUAs for micro-irrigation management through joint efforts from the state’s Jal Shakti Vibhag (Water Resources Department) and Department of Horticulture (DOH).

The project will also modernise public and private subtropical horticulture nursery facilities for improved plant health, and boost beneficiary farmers’ access to information and communication technologies, and other digital agri-technology systems for real-time farm advisories and cluster-wide community horticulture production and marketing associations (CHPMAs) management.

“Improving subtropical horticulture in the southern areas of Himachal Pradesh, hitherto dependent on temperate horticulture in northern areas, offers opportunities for crop diversification, climate adaptation and more equal economic and social development across the state’s rural areas. Supporting horticulture value chains will also boost the subsector’s contribution to the country’s development and food security,” Mishra said after signing on the project.

“The project builds upon a pilot financed by ADB’s project readiness facility which demonstrated the subtropical horticulture production over 200 hectares and prepared the draft water user association (WUA) act and the draft state horticulture development strategy,” Konishi added.