The total area devoted to fruits and vegetables production has increased rapidly in recent years, reaching 1.5 million hectares (ha) in FY2004. The production between FY2002 and FY2003 rapidly increased for some fruit crops such as peach (103 percent), persimmon (76 percent), and pomegranate (67 percent), reflecting the strong domestic market demand for horticultural crops.
According to an official study report, citrus with total production of 2.1 million tons in FY2004, is the largest horticulture crop group by volume, and a major export revenue earner along with dates and mangoes.
The floriculture is a relatively new horticultural sub-sector, and has grown at an annual rate of at least 10 percent over the past 3 years.
According to study report, these crops have good competitive potential that needs to be exploited.
At present, the agriculture sector, accounting for 25 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), almost 50 percent of employment and about 70 percent of exports, is at a crossroads. The growth of the sector, which is dominated by traditional food (wheat, rice etc) and industrial (cotton, sugarcane) crops, declined to an average annual rate of 2.4 percent with sharp year-to-year fluctuations from 1990 to 2002, as compared with the overall rate of 3.5 percent achieved from 1960 onward. Yields of major crops have largely stagnated for the past decade.
The diversification into commercially-oriented crops and dynamism in the livestock sub-sector is encouraging, but the dominance of the major crops in agricultural GDP has slowed the performance of the agriculture sector as a whole.