The Meghalaya government has initiated a farmer’s parliament to understand the plight of the farming community and assist them through different pro-active policies.

On Tuesday, chief minister Conrad K Sangma said that the government has envisioned creation of a ‘Farmer’s Commission’ to address the concerns of the farming community and look at solution to tackle the problems being faced by them.

“Farmer’s parliament is allowing the government officials and the policy makers to meet at a single platform to find out ways and measures to address the challenges affecting the farming community of Meghalaya,” Sangma said at the first Farmer’s Parliament, organised by the Department of Agriculture in collaboration with Meghalaya Basin Development Agency and Hill Farmers’ Union.

Admitting that there has been inherent problem with regards to infrastructure, logistics and market linkages, the chief minister said, “We have initiated different programmes to enable direct access to market and value addition to agriculture and horticulture products. However, it is important for us to hear the concerns of the farmers. We believe that through farmer’s parliament there will be direct engagement which will enable us to further develop our policies in sync with the needs of our farmers.”

Sangma also told the farmers that the government intends to upscale the potential of the farming community through different innovative and marketing programmes. “We are collaborating with different institutions and research organisations to address the bottleneck in the effective implementation of existing government schemes as well as devise strategies to promote our agricultural products,” he added.

He informed that the government will support farmers to develop their products and help them through buy back policies. “We encourage farmers to develop innovative value added products with assurance that government will be willing to support them in every possible manner,” the chief minister said.

Subscribe to our Newsletter


Avatar photo
About TNM NewsDesk

-

The News Mill is a Guwahati-based digital media with focus on content from across Northeast India and beyond. We can be reached through [email protected]