A CORRESPONDENT
BISWANATH CHARIALI: A field visit of the king chilli cluster area under Laimwn FPO at Jaypur, Gohpur, was conducted on Thursday by a District Agriculture Team, Biswanath, consisting of Baneswar Bey, District Agricultural Officer, Manash Pratim Das, Senior Agricultural Development Officer and District Nodal Officer (Horticulture), Rekhankona Pegu, ADO, Gohpur, Gopal Borah, AAI and i/c AEA, and Kristi Borah, Media Expert, along with Sandeep Debnath, LDM, and Suman Chatterjee, DDM, NABARD, Biswanath.
Soon after visiting the area, the visiting team interacted with the king chilli growers of Laimwn FPO on the challenges being faced by them, specially during harvesting & marketing of the product. The farmers urged for installation of a large-capacity heat pump dryer and vacuum packaging unit to avoid the loss of value, particularly while the market price declines to Rs 100-150 per kg in the later period of harvesting season. The discussion was then mainly focused on credit linkage with financial institutes under subsidy schemes for setting up of dryer and packaging units. This initiative supported by NABARD and Agriculture Department, Biswanath, aims to transform traditional farming into sustainable and export-oriented enterprise.
The cluster area comprises about 1785 bighas where the growers were provided with solar pump sets, portable sprinklers, heat pump dryer, electric dryer, plastic mulching, sprayers, etc. through different schemes under the Agriculture Department of Biswanath.
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