West Jaiñtia Hills district was today officially covered under the centre’s, Horticulture Cluster Development Programme (CDP) for its famous Lakadong turmeric.
The district is amongst 12 other States out of 53 in the country identified under the pilot project to be implemented by the National Horticulture Board (NHB) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare.
A Krishi Mela and an awareness programme on the CDP was organised by the NHB in association with the Meghalaya State Agricultural Marketing Board and the Directorate of Horticulture in Shanpung Moolibang where officials of the board, ICAR and KVK representatives, Spices Board and others were present.
At the event, officials spoke about the CDP and its aims. They said the programme is designed to leverage the geographical specialisation of horticulture clusters and promote integrated and market-led development through interventions in pre-production and production, post-harvest and value addition, logistics, branding and marketing.
The implementation of this project in West Jaiñtia Hills is expected to address concerns of the turmeric value chain in an integrated manner to accelerate competitiveness in domestic and
export markets. It also aims to reduce harvest and post-harvest losses by developing/expanding/upgrading infrastructure for post-harvest handling of produce, value addition and developing market linkages.
Further the CDP will facilitated the introduction of innovative technologies and practices to enhance the global competitiveness of focus cluster crops, dovetailing of resources, including the convergence of various government schemes, to entrench stakeholders in the global value chains and also build stakeholder capacity and enhance farmers income through cluster-specific interventions, including brand promotion.
