ITANAGAR, Aug 29: The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development’s (NABARD) newly-formed regional advisory group (RAG) for Arunachal in its first meeting here on Thursday highlighted the need for the state’s policymakers to pay attention to the scope for formation of farmers-producers organisations (FPO) in respect of piggery and bamboo sectors.
In a press release, the bank’s regional office (RO) here informed that the RAG has been formed “in order to obtain field level perceptions on issues relating to farms, farmers and rural economy, and facilitate policymaking.”
Agriculture Secretary Bidol Tayeng, who inaugurated the RAG meeting, stressed the importance of “field level consultations in improving policies,” while PCCF (Environment & Forest) RK Singh spoke on the state’s forest policy and the salient features of the State Bamboo Mission, besides highlighting the schemes being implemented by the state in the bamboo sector.
NABARD RO General Manager Gopa Kumaran Nair highlighted the importance of the RAG and the “huge untapped potential that exists for commercial development of piggery in the farm sector and bamboo in non-farm sector in Arunachal.”
Nair shared the NABARD’s view on developing these two sectors, and enumerated the support available with the NABARD and the central government for developing the piggery and bamboo sectors.
NABARD RO Manager Baidya Nath Singh made a presentation on the concept of FPOs, and the status of the formation of product-specific FPOs was also discussed during the meeting. The salient features of the support available to FPOs from the NABARD and the SFAC, and under the CM Krishi Samuh Yojna were also discussed.
NABARD RO AGM Reji Varghese made a presentation on scientific rearing and commercialization of piggery in the state. It may be mentioned that Arunachal ranks 11th in pork production in India.
Bamboo expert Pratap Goswami spoke on the scope and potential of bamboo production in the state. “Bamboo cultivation and establishment of bamboo industry should go hand-in-hand, so that the bamboo cultivated by the farmers can be utilized by bamboo industries,” he said.
Besides NABARD officials, the meeting was attended by the soil & water conservation director, the agriculture deputy director, the registrars of NEFTU and RGU, the dean of Pasighat (East Siang)-based CHF, the SBI’s regional manager, progressive farmers from Namsai, and others.
