The paper has also urged the central government and the North Eastern Development Council to create an umbrella policy so that the potential of organic products could be harnessed. "With proper post-harvest technology, the region has all the potential to become a producer of tea, coffee, aromatic rice, medicinal plants and horticulture products," BC Barah, principal scientist at the National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research (NCAP) observed in the paper.
"Low use of chemical inputs in the north eastern regions should be converted into an opportunity by promoting organic products for which demand is fast rising in domestic as well international market," Barah told FE.
The paper — Agricultural Development in North-East India: challenges and opportunities — said states are rich on human capital and with right kind of market linkage strategy, the potential for increasing agricultural income would be enhanced significantly.
"The existing institutional credit system is severely hampered in the area due to certain institutional problems and a strategy should be evolved to promote community based collaterals for effective credit delivery," the paper noted.
It said that the geo-physical conditions limit horizontal expansion of cultivable land in the north eastern states because of which the percentage of cultivable area to the total geographical areas ranges from 2.2% (in hilly state like Arunachal Pradesh) to 35.4% (in Assam), as compared to 43.3% as the national average.
Combinations of food crops with livestock, fishery, piggery, forestry and horticulture are have been suggested for Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram, where the cultivable land is less than 10% of the geographical areas. "The hilly terrains and slopes of these states may be used for plantation crops such as fruits, rubber and forestry, flower and livestock to supplement food production and income generations," the paper noted.
For north eastern states and hilly areas, the government has launched a centrally sponsored scheme on integrated development of horticulture in the north eastern states in 2001-02 which was extended to Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand in 2003-04. The scheme has been renamed Horticulture Mission for North-East and Himalayan States with effect from 2010-11, which provides higher subsidy than what is available under National Horticulture Mission (NHM) in plane areas.
In order to make seeds timely available at affordable prices to the farmers of hilly or remote areas of north eastern states, including Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand and hilly areas of West Bengal, the scheme of transport subsidy on movement of seeds is in operation.
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