Worsening Plight of Organic Farmers in Nagaland: A Major Concern

Guwahati: The saddening plight of organic farmers in the hilly state of Nagaland has given rise to serious concern among the co-operative societies.

Like Sikkim, Nagaland is also predominantly hilly and blessed with favorable conditions, but the picture is a stark contrast as local farmers continue to fend for themselves. Though there is a thin silver lining with cooperative societies like Green Shelves Agri Produce and Marketing Cooperative Society trying to ameliorate the condition of local farmers, there is still a lot left desired on various fronts.

As per reports, after the brief inauguration of a farmers’ store by Green Shelves Agri Produce and Marketing Cooperative Society at Lhomithi village on Monday, society Chairman Bumo Chang focused on certain major challenges that needed to be addressed for local farmers to gain a better foothold in the market.

It needs to be mentioned that one of the main aspects, as stated by Bumo Chang that has been a major deterrent, is the lack of proper transport facilities. Very little has been done to enable local organic farmers from far-flung areas to transport their agricultural produce.

Emphasizing on another major reason, Bumo Chang said that as organic produce generally lasts for about two to three days, lack of cold storage facilities resulted in tonnes of agricultural produce getting decomposed, thereby leading to huge losses for the farmers. Cold storage was imperative for storing in case produces were not sold out on a given day.

Also, calling for more patronage to local farmers, Bumo quipped “We should not blame the government but ourselves.” He urged locals to support the farmers by “eating local, buying local and supporting local.”

The programme was chaired by Y Asen and the dedication prayer was delivered by Asola.

However, to address this, Bumo Chang suggested that the government could consider transporting around 300 kg of their produce via NST buses every day. He further added that his cooperative society was also contemplating to initiate transportation to help farmers.

In his speech as the special guest, Dr. Chuba said the State government had 7,990 registered cooperative societies, out which only 926 societies were audited in 2017 and the remaining were either non-functional or on the verge of collapse.

On the other hand, citing Peren, the newest district of the state as an example, Bumo said a distance of around 70 km should ideally take about one-and-a-half to two hours to cover, but bad roads had made transportation cumbersome, time-consuming and very expensive for farmers. He said the distance should not take five to seven hours like now.

Earlier in the day, the farmers’ market housed at a building provided by MARCOFED was inaugurated by Nagaland State Co-operative Marketing & Consumers Federation Ltd (MARCOFED) chairman Dr. M Chuba Ao.

Dr. Chuba lamented that nobody had come forward to seek help while encouraging those present to buy local and keep the economy generated circulating within the State.

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