The government of Sikkim has started to give priority for cluster development in horticulture sector. According to the strategy, the government selects group of more than 10 farmers in a particular area for giving them training and subsidies as per the cluster development strategy. The logic is that this will facilitate easy follow up action where the farmers will be benefiting. The focus is maximum production from the farms through scientific farming. The State government and other agencies will fully support the farmers by providing them technical support, high quality saplings and other subsidies for maximum yield. Nagaland should also seriously consider taking up innovative exercise in its policy designs so that existing programmes can be improved upon. It may be mentioned that a cluster is usually a ‘geographical concentration’ producing the same or a similar range of products.
may recall that a similar approach was tried out as per the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Department of Horticulture with ITC and Spice Board of India for growing and marketing of Naga chilly. This however turned out to be a complete failure because of the halfhearted effort from all concerned. So it is not that our State is lacking in ideas or strategies but more often than not we are unable to implement many such proposals. Why? It is because of insincerity of the government and the lack of coordination among the agencies. And this is proven by the fact that there is uneven and distorted development in implementation of schemes in the State.
Recently the Chief Minister has also been emphasizing on adopting ‘crop zoning’ approach. The point is whether it is cluster or crop zoning approach, the different departments have been doing it but this has to be revamped and done with more serious and not through piecemeal effort. To begin with, a crop zoning map of Nagaland needs to be developed. Besides a standard framework for suitable and optimum agriculture land use will have to be found. GIS technology is available and can be a very useful tool for the selection of suitable areas in the cultivation of specific crops based on agro-climatic factors.
Likewise though enough thrust has been given on production, yet it is seen that not enough emphasis is given on post harvest management/technology and marketing. Nagaland has witnessed several instances where valuable food products—ginger, tomato, pineapple, Naga chilly go to waste because of our poor marketing infrastructure and near absence of post harvest technology. So besides encouraging production, the marketing and processing side has to be emphasized if our local farmers are to benefit from the market economy. Different approaches such as cluster or crop zoning should be taken. But having a good policy is not enough. The execution will have to complete in all respect. Results must show. Similarly food production will have to go side by side with developing marketing infrastructure and post harvest technology. This will require a new mindset and appraisal of our policy.
