Dr. Chumben Murry, minister for agriculture, attended the workshop along with S. Imchen, commissioner and secretary, horticulture and A. Y. Ovung, director of agriculture.
In his speech, Dr. Chumben highlighted that the state could not harness the benefit of \u2018Green Revolution\u2019 and that it had remained agriculturally underdeveloped for a long time. However, he said during the recent years, the state had shown increase in production rate averaging 10.29% during the 10th Five Year plan.
\u201cThis is attributed to the state government\u2019s policy such as \u201cYear of Rice & Maize\u201d 2002, \u201cYear of Farmers\u201d 2006 and 2007, the North East Expo 2006 and the Rice Festival 2007 which directly benefited the small and marginal farmers of the state\u201d, he added.
Dr. Chumben also stated that food security was a big concern in a state having high population growth and climate related calamities like drought situation, continuous rodent menace etc. He said the focus of agriculture strategies and policies in North East should be on shifting cultivation with an aim to wean away farmers from traditional farming to a more scientific and settled form of cultivation with a larger stress on rabi campaign. He also said new strategies and policies would also need good capacity building and enticing both the service providers and receivers where Krishi Vigyan Kendras and extension services need to be strengthened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"