Market linkage initiatives
Organic Pineapple Festival at Delhi
Nagaland Pineapples are known to be among the best in the world due to its high TSS content (high sugar) and less fibre making it very pleasant to taste and savor it. In an effort to exhibit this unique and high quality pineapples of the state of Nagaland, CIH in collaboration of NHB and ICCOA organized an 11 day (17th-27th July, 2010) Organic Pineapple Festival at INA Dilli Haat, New Delhi by helping the Nagaland Organic Pineapple Growers Society to market their produce.
CIH organized an exposure trip of some selected farmers from the society to study the market at SIRSI, Karnataka and New Delhi. These trips were coordinated by staff of CIH along with ICCOA and NHB.
CIH facilitated the society to avail NHB scheme that are available for the farmers with regards to transportation cost, travel expenses, packaging cost as well as exhibition and advertisements.
N E Organic Fest
The North Eastern India (NER) of the country comprising of eight states, Arunachal, Assam, Megalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura is bounded by four countries, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China and Mayanmar. The region occupies about 5.6 per cent of the total geographical area of the country. The variedclimate, altitude, geographic conditions etc. leads to enrich biodiversity in the region and formation of varied ethnical and social setup. Geographically the region may be divided into three regions like plain valley, medium hills and higher elevation which lead to different environment and social diversification.
The agriculture in North Eastern India is very much indigenous and is devoid of use of any chemicals, which makes the states Organic by virtue of its nature of cultivation practices. The states has immense potential for cultivation of various organic produce like Ginger, Pineapples, Garlic, Cardamom and many more. But the potential of the state is not being explored fully in terms of market linkage of the high quality organic produce of the region. There is an immense scope for linking the producers or producer groups of NE to market for their organically grown high value produce.
So, with the objective to provide a proper platform to the farmers to showcase the unique and high quality organic produces from the region and also to provide them better access to markets across the country, the Central Institute of Horticulture and National Horticulture Board in collaboration with Dept. of Horticulture, Govt. of Nagaland & National Skills of Foundation of India (NSFI), Delhi organized “North East Organic Fest” at Delhi Haat (INA & Pitampura) w.e.f. 15 th – 18 th December, 2012.
As a part of the fest, a Roundtable & a Buyers & Sellers Meet was organized at
Delhi Haat, INA on 15 th December, 2012. The program had around 50 participants from various organizations like Wal-mart, Reliance, Metro, APEDA, Carrefour, National Center of Organic Farming, FICCI etc. The discussion focused on various issues and challenges prevalent in the region that includes Package of Practices, Value addition, Certification, Marketing linkage, farm mechanization Technology transfer etc. The participants in the round table present a good mix of various experiences from top leaders of Government sectors, corporate sectors, from the retail sectors and the farmers from different state of North- East who are involved in farming activities of organic fruits and vegetables.A four days Exhibition cum sale programme was organized in Delhi’s two primelocations, Delhi Haat INA & Delhi Haat Pitampura. A total of 62 farmers belonging from different states of North East participated in the programme. Eight stalls each were allocated to farmers from eight states of North East in both the venues where a variety of fresh horticulture produce were exhibited & sold by the farmers. Central Institute of Horticulture, Nagaland having identified the uniqueness & high quality pineapples of Nagaland facilitated the State Horticulture Department in creating a brand name of Nagaland Pineapple and during the event the brand logo of Naga Pineapple was released.
