Central Institute of Horticulture, Nagaland was set up in the year 2005-06 with the objective to provide institutional support for development of horticulture in North East Region. One of the key objectives of the Institute to facilitate production and distribution of disease free planting material to the farming community and the Institute has been working tirelessly towards availability of genuine planting material.

The Institute has already established 20 nos. of mother blocks of crops like Cashew, Citrus, Mango, Guava, Kinnow Mandarin, Assam Lemon, Khasi Mandarin, Pineapple, Litchi, Aonla, Peach, Bael, Sapota, Ber, Custard apple and Fig in 14 ha land .

During the national lockdown, the Institute has been able to supply more than 30000 planting materials of various horticulture crops like Acid Lime, Cashewnut, Khasi Mandarin, Mosambi, Guava and Mango in Kohima, Dimapur, Peren, Mokokchung & Phek districts of Nagaland.

It is estimated that an area of 70 Ha of area has been established in farmers’ field in various districts of Nagaland through the planting materials supplied by CIH, Nagaland.

FPO (Farmer’s Producer Organisation) was formed under Bade Area Agri. & Allied Co-operative Society Ltd., Dimapur. Before the intervention of CIH, Nagaland, they were blindly engaged in traditional farming using primitive forms of agricultural practices. These vegetable famers were first trained at CIH, and after attending awareness and training programme on improved production technology of vegetables organized by CIH, Nagaland; they approached the Director, CIH who in turn motivated them to take up vegetable farming in a scientific manner. The farmer was fully convinced with the technology and remained in touch with the technical staff of CIH then onwards. FPOs are also one of the vegetable cultivators in the state.

They initiated vegetable cultivation under the supervision of technical staff of CIH and as a follow up, the staff of CIH visited their field at regular intervals. They were provided with all the need - based knowledge and skills. The impact of hard working attitudes of farmer and their ability to grasp the technologies at a much faster rate for better adoption the way they deserved to be implemented

• Good production coupled with unstable market price, make the growers not in a position to receive the desired incentive of higher production. Another viable option could be to regulate the crop cycle according to market price of different vegetables since the climate is already so suitable for such ventures
• Shelf life of vegetables is very short, which needs to be backed up through proper development of value chain management as per index of Codex Alimentarius of different vegetables.
• The impact of promising technology is more than often undone by lack of proper irrigation facilities since vegetable cultivation requires abundant water for irrigation, especially during at initial stage of crop growth.

• The beneficiary obtained a yield of 7 tons/ha of Broccoli (F1 hybrid Sakura), 25 tons /ha Cabbage (Golden Acre), 30 tons/ha French bean (Arka Anoop) and 6 tons/ha spinach (Pusa Bharti) generated an income of Rs. 2,00,000, on an ha area which is a staggering income needed.
• Shelf life of vegetables is very short, which needs to be backed up through proper development of value chain management as per index of Codex Alimentarius of different vegetables.
• After seeing the potential of the new variety of French bean, farmers also look up seed production in the current year. The seeds so generated were supplied to the neighboring farmers. And, soon, this additional income will also add into the net economic benefit.
• The so trained farmers actively guide other farmers in adoption of new technologies and at present they are having 30 ha of land under vegetables. This is how, adopted technology is percolating from one area to another area, once impact of technology is visible in field.

• With CIH intervention, farmers up have started growing different vegetable crops in one season in the village and as a result they are realizing better price in the market to catch up with any eventuality of slackness in market price.
• The farmers were trained at CIH through comprehensive training programmes related to improved production technology organized by CIH. The Institute has also assisted and organized exposure trip to IHT, Noida, and Uttar Pradesh. This is how CIH is dedicated in service of farmers of northeastern India.
• The change scenario of vegetable cultivation has started being realized in the wake of area, production and productivity. With intervention of CIH, the impact of technology adoption in productivity has been observed across entire northeastern states when baseline data of 2008-09 is compared with 2015-16 as a year of impact assessment, with the result, average productivity increased from 9.6 to 5.3 tons/ha in Arunachal Pradesh, 11.7 to 12.2 tons/ha in Assam, 9.6 to 10.1 tons/ha in Manipur, 9.4 to 10.0 tons/ha in Meghalaya, 7.5 to 8.0tons/ha in Nagaland, 4.6 to 5.2 tons/ha in Sikkim, and 11.5 to 16.7 tons/ha in Tripura. These figures of productivity will become wider as the impact of technology reaches to many more farmers.