Governor harps on farmers' capacity-building

GUWAHATI, May 5: The curtain of Vibrant North East 2018 put down today with Governor Prof. Jagdish Mukhi, who was the chief guest at the concluding programme, saying that the three-day exposition would act as the catalyst in transforming North East into an organic hub of the country and help the region to formulate effective programme to take advantage of the growing demand of the global organic market which is over US $ 62 billion at present.

Speaking on the programme held at AAU Veterinary College ground at Khanapara here today, Prof. Mukhi said that in sync with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of transforming North East into an organic hub, the Central government has launched a major organic programme for North East and now the region should be empowered to take advantage of the programme to make North East an organic hub. He, however, said that there is an urgent need for training and competence building, investments, marketing, processing, projects and infrastructure development to accelerate the capacity building of the region to sow the seeds and reap the dividends of organic market. Prof. Mukhi also said that if that is done it would lead to accelerated growth, creation of more jobs for the people of this region. 

Prof. Mukhi also reiterated that Vibrant North East 2018 which featured agri and rural expo,  North East Development Meet and so on and so forth would boost respective governments’ efforts in creating better awareness towards investment and growth potential of the region. The Governor also stated that North Eastern region is particularly dependent on agriculture more particularly on horticulture. Each State of the region is famous for its unique horticultural produce. For example Sikkim is known for cardamom, Meghalaya for ginger, Assam for tea, Manipur for passion fruit and Tripura for pineapple, and the event like this should promote the unique selling proposition of these items worldwide and complement in the economic growth of the region.

Prof. Mukhi also said, “I believe North East region will be at the top in the country to achieve the target given by our Prime Minister to double farmers’ income by 2022. Our farmers have toiled hard and they are now self-sufficient and are contributing to the nation’s endeavour of exporting agricultural produce  to other countries.”

The Governor also paid a visit to the exhibition stalls which showcased products and technologies for the benefit of the farmers, entrepreneurs, youth and other stakeholders. It may be noted that the exhibition displays products and services ranging from financial inclusion to micro irrigation, horticulture to rural crafts and skill development to entrepreneurship programmes and expressed satisfaction over the manner in which the exhibition has been conducted to lend awareness as well education to the stakeholders.