NHB Nursery Accreditation: Star Rating, Fees & Process

The National Horticulture Board (NHB) runs a voluntary scheme it formally calls "Recognition of Horticulture Nurseries". Nursery owners and officials usually call it accreditation or the NHB star rating. A nursery applies, is assessed against a set of standards, and if it scores well enough it is recognised with one, two or three stars.

Two details shape how you apply. Recognition is per premises, so a nursery with two sites applies for each separately. It is also crop-specific: you are recognised for the crops you name and are assessed on, such as mango, citrus or pomegranate, not for everything you grow.

• Government demand: under MIDH guideline 7.8, planting material for MIDH programmes must be procured from accredited nurseries. Government plantation drives and subsidised orchards are large, steady buyers.
• Subsidy conditions: nurseries set up with MIDH assistance must be accredited within 18 months of the last instalment.
• Buyer trust: orchard growers, dealers and landscapers paying for grafted fruit plants want confidence in the variety and the mother plant behind it. A star rating is an independent signal.
• Better operations: preparing for the assessment forces you to document mother plants, propagation and stock, which pays off whether or not you sell to government.

1. Decide which premises and which crops you will apply for.
2. Apply to NHB in Form-1 and pay the non-refundable application fee online.
3. Attach the nursery layout, land-use plan, details of technically qualified staff and the machinery available.
4. Attach an operational manual covering mother-plant selection and maintenance, the propagation process and inventory management, plus details of where your mother plants came from.
5. An NHB-designated agency inspects the nursery and assesses it against the standards.
6. A technical committee, drawing on a state agricultural university, an ICAR institute, a nurserymen's association, NHB and the state horticulture department, reviews the assessment and decides the grade.
7. If you score above the qualifying mark, you receive recognition with a star rating.

The NHB guidelines name the areas a nursery must document and that assessors examine. Keep these in mind when you prepare:

• Nursery layout and land-use plan
• Technically qualified staff
• Machinery and equipment
• Selection and maintenance of mother plants
• Source of the mother plants
• Propagation process
• Inventory management
• A sale register

Notice how many of these are records rather than structures. A clean mother block and good propagation facilities matter, but an assessor also wants to see that you can trace a plant back to its mother plant and forward to the customer who bought it.

Aim for the documented areas first. A nursery that already has a mother block, trained staff and a working shed often loses marks simply because it cannot show records of where mother plants came from or what was sold.

Nurseries run by government departments, state agricultural universities and ICAR institutes are exempt from the fee. Since recognition is per premises, budget a fee for each site you apply for.

Recognition is initially valid for two years. During that time NHB carries out surveillance at least once a year, so standards have to be kept up, not just met on inspection day. Renewal is granted on satisfactory performance, at the renewal fee above.

Nurseries already licensed under a state nursery Act may be given provisional recognition for one year while the full assessment is completed.

NHB recognition sits alongside, not instead of, state rules. At the time NHB compiled its guidelines, 8 states had a fruit nursery regulation Act, 9 had some form of registration system and 13 had none. Maharashtra has had an Act since 1969, Odisha has the Fruit Nurseries (Regulation) Rules 2001, and Andhra Pradesh has a horticulture nursery registration Act.

• Mother-plant register: variety, source, date planted, condition and any testing done
• Propagation records: what was budded, grafted or sown, when, and from which mother plants
• Inventory: plants on hand by crop, variety and age
• Sale register: date, buyer, variety, quantity and invoice number