Discussions were held on horticulture, medicinal crops and natural farming
Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Narendra Singh Tomar and Union Minister of Tourism, Culture and Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), G Kishan Reddy recently hosted a virtual meeting to take stock of various schemes of the Government of India in the sector of the North Eastern Region (NER). Agriculture ministers of the North-Eastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura discussed the issues and challenges they were facing in detail.
Union Minister of State for DoNER, BL Verma,. Ministers for Agriculture of all the eight North Eastern States accompanied by the Secretary, DoNER, Agriculture Secretaries from the NER states with senior officials also marked their presence.
Tomar in his speech quoted, “Our door is always open. I request all the state governments to come up with a proposal if you find any difficulty in any schemes related to the agriculture sector.” He said that about 9 lakh hectare land in the North East is well suited for oil palm production as it has the potential to benefit farmers at large.
He also talked about horticulture and medicinal crops which are grown only in North-Eastern State. He said that Agriculture and Commerce Ministry are working together to tap such opportunities and to solve the logistic problems faced by the North Eastern States.
The minister urged the state governments to pay attention to natural farming.
Officials from Mission Organic Value Chain Development for North Eastern Regions (MOVCDNER); National Mission on Edible Oils – Oil Palm (NMEO-OP); Bamboo in North East Region and the mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH) made presentations regarding various schemes.
