Union Minister for Development of North Eastern Region Jyotiraditya Scindia on Wednesday chaired high-level discussions on strengthening the agriculture and horticulture ecosystem of the North Eastern states with the aim of enhancing farmers’ incomes.
The minister participated in a task force meeting on agriculture and horticulture convened by Prem Singh Tamang, Chief Minister of Sikkim, in the national capital. The meeting was also attended by Manik Saha, Agriculture Ministers from Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, along with senior officials from the ministry.
According to an official statement, the task force deliberated on addressing key gaps in the agri-horti value chain and strengthening market linkages across the North Eastern Region. The discussions focused on leveraging the region’s inherent strengths by promoting specialisation, quality, and distinct market positioning of agri-horticultural products from the Northeast.
Reducing post-harvest losses and lowering marketing and logistics costs were identified as priority areas to improve value realisation for farmers. The meeting also stressed the need for a systematic assessment of bottlenecks across production, post-harvest handling, processing, marketing and logistics segments of the value chain.
The task force discussed the importance of preparing a clear roadmap that moves from foundational interventions to full-scale value chain integration. This includes developing strategic infrastructure to support export readiness, identifying priority commodities for each state, and promoting cluster-based development to ensure scale, efficiency and market alignment.
A blueprint-based approach was proposed, starting with the selection of individual products and addressing their end-to-end value chains through defined short-term, medium-term and long-term plans. Officials said the approach would include product-wise targets, investment requirements and an assessment of the number of farmers involved across states, along with an evaluation of income gains at the product and state levels.
