State government to take cognizance of unscrupulous buyers of agricultural produce

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaJuly 6, 2024

Minister of Agriculture & Family Welfare Ampareen Lyngdoh said that the government will take cognizance of buyers who often sell the products from Meghalaya without the farmers’ knowledge prompting the need for GI tagging.

She was speaking at the Bharat Agri Conclave cum International Buyer-Seller Meet in Shillong, organized by Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) along with the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of Meghalaya held on Saturday.

She said, “Today, Lakadong turmeric is internationally renowned. Unfortunately, buyers have the habit of taking advantage of our simple farmers and selling the produce without their knowledge, which also dilutes the uniqueness of our turmeric products. So now we as a state are seriously attending to the concerns of essential GI tagging to give the uniqueness of our producers in the market its own market, we will take cognizance of this unfair intrusion into our markets and unfair use of our produces and our tags in various markets without proper procedures and processing.”

On the other hand, close to 75% of the citizens are farmers, predominantly agrarian wherein there are some unique products and produces native to Meghalaya, which have drawn the attention of global markets partially because of government funding and focus but predominantly because of the ability of the indigenous farmers to handhold and to continue the practice of a predominantly organic farming practice in the state.

Lyngdoh said, “There is no doubt that in the vegetable sectors, we are still tormented by the dependency on inorganic fertilizers, and slowly, the state of Meghalaya is now hand holding the farmers towards organic farming, which is the original form of farming in the state of Meghalaya. We look forward to working with APEDA.”

The exclusive Buyer Seller Meet in Meghalaya provided an opportunity for producers and processors of Meghalaya to showcase their products to global and domestic buyers. Buyers from 12 countries viz., Uganda, Ghana, Indonesia, Greece, Kuwait, Oman, Vietnam, Nepal, Bangladesh, Singapore, Kenya, and the United Arab Emirates actively participated and interacted with the exporters in the Bharat Agri Conclave cum International Buyer-Seller Meet in Shillong, Meghalaya.

Over 41 exporters across the country and 106 FPO/FPCs, Corporative Societies and other producer groups from the state participated. The event has seen a display of a wide range of agricultural products, including organic fresh fruits and vegetables, processed food products, spices such as Lakadong turmeric, natural honey, aromatic tice, pulses, and others. This event aims to link the producers and processors of Meghalaya with buyers from India and abroad. This initiative is expected to broaden the base of the export basket of NER, thereby increasing farmers’ income and accelerating the overall growth in the region.

To underline its focus on the NER, APEDA in this financial year will be organizing more such events in Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Assam and Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC).