Minister for Agriculture, Dr. Chumben Murry visited NER Agri Expo site on Saturday along with host of officials to oversee the ongoing preparation for forthcoming 3rd NER Agri Expo to be held from November 15-17.
After inspecting the site, he interacted with the officials on the impact and prospects of the expo and said the expo should act as an agent of change and that the department should follow up the post expo result.
Dr. Chumben said the impact of the expo should be documented in the form of data and also expressed desire to have a brainstorming session with agri and allied department officials.
He told them that the authorities should have good marketing policy besides production policy. The minister underscored the importance of mindset change of the service providers which is the government.
“To make improve farmers’ economy, we have to make agriculture attractive and lucrative to farmers,” he said.
Dr. Chumben also said the department should be able to identify crops which are sustainable having high economy for farmers.
The officials present for the discussion said that Agri Expo was making huge impact as more entrepreneurs were taking keen interest and that the outlook of agri business has improved tremendously. They said the changes that have taken place after the first expo in 2006 were impressive with people moving from home-scale production to market scale.
Another change which the officials pointed out was the value of cardamom that shot up from Rs. 80 per kg in 2006 to Rs. 800 during 2010-11 and now the rate has been fixed at Rs 690.
Organic certification of kholar, cardamom, passion fruit and chilly is also under process. Another result of the Agri Expo was the sericulture department tying up with Assam and West Bengal for market linkages and value addition.
Some other officials said the expo is an eye opener to the outside world for the Naga farmers.
Earlier, agriculture was all under the control of businessmen who took advantage of the poor farmers. But now an impressive section of farmers are doing business on their own without depending on the businessmen.
The mega event is further encouraged by participants from Israel, Laos and Thailand. Director of agriculture, E.H. Lotha said it was not only about changing the mindset of the famers but that changing the mindset of the department officials was equally important. This way, the officials can advise farmers in a better way with their expertise and changed mindset.
With this Agri Expo, Lotha said the farmer communities have better option for commercial production.