Morung Express News
Kohima | August 2
Secretary, Land Resources Department, Y. Kikheto Sema IAS on Tuesday urged the department officials and field workers to thoroughly assess income generation of beneficiaries solely assisted by the Department of Land Resources.
He said this at the quarterly meeting of the district officers at its Directorate in Kohima during which District Project Officers of Kohima, Zunheboto, Longleng and Mon presented power point presentations on its activities in their respective districts.
The Secretary told the officials to strictly abide by the advice of the Coffee Board of India to use only certified coffee seeds for plantation. He cautioned the district officers not to allow the farmers to buy coffee seeds from unauthorised nurseries.
Kikheto told the officers to be very careful with coffee farming since it was a failed crop and that the Department has now been assigned as the nodal agency for its revival.
Kikheto also urged the technical officials to come up with properly studied guidelines on value addition crops besides coffee such as vanilla, black pepper, betelnut leaves etc.
He opined that the guidelines of all crops should not only be verbal in nature but in printed form and in local dialects too for better understanding of the farmers who may not be well versed with English.
Kikheto told the officials to identify best practices of different activities and facilitate farmers to interact with each other in the form of field visits and share their success stories on the spot.
He emphasised on the need to have nurseries in each district instead of importing seeds from outside the state and from Dimapur alone which causes high mortality rate during and after transportations. He added that such imports also involve high cost and results in low returns.
Kikheto said there was a need to encourage the activities taken up by the Department as most of its activities were eco-friendly without the need to clear vast areas of jungle. “Rubber plantation, coffee farming etc are eco-friendly which will give high commercial return along with value addition,” Kikheto said and added that such activities will divert the minds of jhuming community to more eco-friendly source of livelihood.
Director, Land Resources Department, Mhathung Yanthan told the department officials to be accurate in collection of data in order to get clear performance of the beneficiaries and the Department as well.
The four DPOs in their presentations were unanimous that most of the villages in their respective areas of intervention had abandoned shifting cultivation and were opting for more resourceful activities like cardamom farming, rubber plantation, kiwi fruit cultivation etc with active intervention from the Watershed Management Team of the Department.
