New Delhi, 6 Jan (Commoditiescontrol)The North Eastern Region has a huge potential for oil palm production, for which the states in the region are given priority, said Narendra Singh Tomar, Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare on Thursday in a meeting to review the progress of various schemes of the Government of India in the Agriculture sector in states of the Northeastern Region (NER).
The country’s food imports can be reduced with a high contribution from the North Eastern Region and the government is focusing on solving the challenges of logistics infrastructure. He stated that the Government of India will do everything in its capacity to ensure that the income of the farmers of the Northeast Region is doubled. He said that the Prime Minister’s vision to minimise the dependence of farmers on purchased inputs through Zero budget Natural farming that reduces the cost of agriculture by relying on traditional field-based technologies which leads to improved soil health through natural farming should be fulfilled.
G. Kishan Reddy, Union Minister said that a task force should be formed with representatives from Agriculture Ministry, DoNER and State governments to ensure that the schemes of Agriculture Ministry can be saturated for the Northeastern Region. Shri Tomar agreed to the same and issued necessary instructions to set up the Task Force.
The meeting was co-chaired by Union Minister of Agriculture Narendra Singh Tomar and Union Minister of Tourism, Culture and Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) G. Kishan Reddy. Minister of State for DoNER B L Verma, Ministers for Agriculture of all the 8 North Eastern States attended the meeting.
Secretary, DONER, Secretary, Agriculture, Agriculture Secretaries from NER States alongwith senior officials of both the Ministries and their organizations were present in the meeting.
During the meeting brief presentations on the major initiatives/ programmes being run by the Ministries in the Agricultural Sector for NER States were made by the Agriculture Ministry and Secretaries of all the 8 States of NER. Key schemes/programs discussed during the meeting are as below:
Mission Organic Value Chain Development for North Eastern Regions (MOVCDNER)
National Mission on Edible Oils – Oil Palm (NMEO-OP)
Bamboo in North East Region
Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture’ (MIDH)
Agriculture Ministers of the Northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura dissued the issues and challenges they were facing in detail.
Narendra Singh Tomar, Union Minister for Agriculture and G. Kishan Reddy, Union Minister of Tourism, Culture and Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) reviewed the implementation and progress of various schemes of Government of India in Agriculture sector implemented in North Eastern states virtually from Vignan Bhavan, New Delhi here today.
Officials from organizations such as North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Ltd. (NEDFI), TRIFED that markets Tribal produce and the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd.(NAFED) also made presentations on the work their respective organizations are undertaking in the North east region. The officials from the Ministry of Food Processing were also present and made presentations on the various schemes available for the Northeast region.
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