At present, India is the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world. There has been a good impact of National Horticulture Mission (NHM) scheme both in respect of the area of coverage as well as the productivity of horticulture crops. Horticulture crops have the inherent advantage of providing higher productivity per unit area of land as compared to other crops, resulting in higher income and employment generation in rural areas. Fruits and vegetables have been shown to earn 20-30 times  more foreign exchange per unit area than cereals due to higher yields and higher prices available in the national and international markets