NAMSAI, 8 Aug: NABARD General Manager Partho Saha laid the foundation stone of a rural haat in Mahadevpur II in Namsai district on Sunday.
Funded by the NABARD’s Itanagar-based regional office, the project will be implemented by farmers-producers company Namsai Organic Spices and Agricultural Products (NOSAAP) Producer Co Ltd.
NOSAAP CEO Chau Athina Chauhai said that the rural haat would be one of its kind in the state “in terms of unique infrastructure and methods of marketing.”
At present, the farmers of the nearby villages sell their vegetables along the roadside without any permanent shed/structure. The rural haat would mitigate the marketing hardships faced by the local farmers, vegetable growers and women SHGs.
NABARD DDM Kamal Roy said that the location of the haat at the trijunction of Namsai, Tinsukia (Assam) and Changlang would boost the sales of local produces.
Saha later gave away an Azolla bed for production and culture of Azolla, under the NABARD-funded LEDP project.
Azolla, which is a freshwater fern that lives in ponds, lakes, swamps and streams in tropical and sub-tropical conditions, can be fed to livestock in either fresh or dried form. One Azolla bed is given to a cluster of five farmers. It is used as a demonstration unit, and also produces raw materials for making Azolla-based feed.
