219th Coffee Board Meeting with Chief Minister, Dr Neiphiu Rio, hosted by the Department of Land Resources was held from September 3 at Vivor Hotel, Kohima. (DIPR Photo)
CM cites over 10 lakh hectares of suitable land, urges Coffee Board to train farmers
Kohima, September 3 (MExN): The 219th Coffee Board Meeting with Chief Minister, Dr. Neiphiu Rio, hosted by the Department of Land Resources was held from September 3 at Vivor Hotel, Kohima.
Nagaland Chief Minister Dr Neiphiu Rio exuded confidence that the state has the potential to become a major coffee producer, citing over 10 lakh hectares of suitable land.
Addressing members of the Coffee Board of India, the CM stated that while coffee plantations were introduced in the 1980s with the Board's support, the initiative “failed not because of the farmers but because the Coffee Board could not manage it.”
With the Coffee Board now returning to assist the Department of Land Resources in reviving the sector, the CM expressed hope for a successful turnaround. He further said the ‘Viksit Bharat 2047’ vision could also give a challenge to make coffee an identity to the state of Nagaland.
According to a DIPR report, the Chief Minister, addressing the meeting, stated that Nagaland’s farmers are producing a range of exotic fruits, including avocados, persimmons, kiwi, dragon fruits, and pineapples.
However, Dr Rio pointed to the unresolved Naga political issue as the primary reason for the lack of investors “to all the industries of the state.” He cited the collapse of the Nagaland Paper Mill, a partnership with Hindustan Paper Corporation, which he said could not be revived, leading to wastage of abundant bamboo resources. He also mentioned the failure of the Sugar Mill Factory in Dimapur, attributing it to urban congestion and a lack of available land for sugarcane cultivation.
However, the CM assured that it may take a while for industries to come in the state as the “potential of raw material are available locally” and “has no problem of transport, and “raw materials cannot be imported due to produce equality and price competition. “
He mentioned that the state have a huge deposit of petroleum, natural gas, rich minerals, mountains of limes and marbles.
Dr Rio therefore emphasized that without industries and without import, the potential and the most viable were the farmers themselves, if they can utilize their soil and the land for coffee for production, and the state prohibiting the use of fertilizers, produce organic coffee.
The Chief Minister urged the Coffee Board members to go beyond visitation and actively engage with farmers during their field trips. He specifically asked them to “motivate the farmers, provide various trainings to produce the right coffee beans and provide nursery plantation materials.”
The programme was chaired by Kurma Rao M, IAS, CEO/Secretary Coffee Board. The members would be holding meeting with different stakeholder and would also be visiting coffee plantation farms during their three-day stay in the state capital.
