Income and Nutritional Security from Vegetable Cultivation in Karnataka

Horticultural crops play a unique role in India's economy by improving the income of the rural people. Cultivation of these crops is labour intensive and as such they generate lot of employment opportunities for the rural population. Fruits and vegetables are also rich source of vitamins, minerals, proteins, and carbohydrates etc., which are essential in human nutrition. Hence, these are referred to as protective foods and assumed great importance as nutritional security of the people. Thus, cultivation of horticultural crops plays a vital role in the prosperity of a nation and is directly linked with the health and happiness of the people. Keeping this in view the analysis was done for comparing the cost and returns structure of vegetable and field crop cultivation and nutrient content of the vegetables. Major field crops such as paddy, wheat, jowar, maize, black gram, green gram, chickpea, groundnut, sunflower, safflower, soybean, cotton and sugarcane were selected for analysis of cost of cultivation. Tomato chilli, capsicum, brinjal, bhendi, cabbage, cauliflower, ridged gourd, bottle gourd, gherkin, turmeric and coriander were selected as a major vegetables crops. For this study secondary data were collected and tabular analysis was employed. The study revealed that, net returns from the selected vegetables varied from 38000 to 173500Rs./ha for ridge gourd and cabbage, respectively which was comparatively more than returns obtained from field crops. Vegetables are nutritionally rich source of vitamins and minerals.