Horticulture is the science or art of cultivating fruits, vegetables, flowers, or ornamental plants. Etymologically, "horticulture" can be broken down into two Latin words: hortus (garden) and cultus (tilling). As William L. George explains in his definition of horticulture:

"Horticulture involves five areas of study. These areas are floriculture (includes production and marketing of floral crops), landscape horticulture (includes production, marketing and maintenance of landscape plants), floriculture (includes production and marketing of vegetables), pomology (includes production and marketing of fruits), and postharvest physiology which involves maintaining quality and preventing spoilage of horticultural crops."

Horticulture is the cultivation of garden plants, fruits, berries, nuts, vegetables, flowers, trees, shrubs and turf. Horticulturists work for plant propagation, crop production, plant breeding, genetic engineering, plant biochemistry, plant physiology, storage, processing and transportation. They work to better crop yield, quality, nutritional value and resistance to insects, diseases, and environmental pollution.

Horticulturalists use modern nurseries for the production of seedlings and mother plants. These plants are propagated through different methods such as seeds, inarching, budding, veneer grafting, patch budding and soft wood grafting.

• Promote holistic growth of horticulture sector, including bamboo and coconut through area based regionally differentiated strategies, which includes research, technology promotion, extension, post harvest management, processing and marketing, in consonance with comparative advantage of each State/region and its diverse agro-climatic features.

• Encourage aggregation of farmers into farmer groups like FIGs/FPOs and FPCs to bring economy of scale and scope.

• Enhance horticulture production, augment farmers, income strengthen nutritional security.

• Improve productivity by way of quality germplasm, planting material and water use efficiency through Micro Irrigation.

• Support skill development and create employment generation opportunities for rural youth in horticulture and post harvest management, especially in the cold chain sector.

To achieve the above objectives, the mission would adopt the following strategies:

• Ensure an end-to-end holistic approach covering production, post harvest management, processing and marketing to assure appropriate returns to growers/producers.

• Promote R&D technologies for production, post-harvest management and processing.

• Enhance acreage, coverage, and productivity through:

• Diversification, from traditional crops to plantations, orchards, vineyards, flower and vegetable gardens.

• Extension of appropriate technology to the farmers for high-tech horticulture cultivation and precision farming.

• Assist setting up post harvest facilities such as pack house, ripening chamber, cold storages, Controlled Atmosphere (CA) storages etc, processing units for value addition and marketing infrastructure.

• Adopt a coordinated approach and promotion of partnership, convergence and synergy among R&D, processing and marketing agencies in public as well as private sectors, at the National, Regional, State and sub-State levels.

• Where appropriate and feasible, promote National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) model of cooperatives to ensure support and adequate returns to farmers.

• Promote capacity-building and Human Resource Development at all levels.