Guwahati: Assam to become self sufficient in major crops by 2026

Agriculture is the mainstay of Assam’s economy. More than 50 per cent of the population in state is directly or indirectly engaged in the farm sector.

To know the present status of the agriculture sector in Assam, Business NorthEast’s (BNE) Priyanka Chakrabarty spoke to Agriculture Director of Assam Anant Gyani.

BNE: Is Assam self sufficient in production of agricultural products?
Director: The State is self sufficient in rice & tea production. However, in most of the other products, the State has to depend on other States to fulfill part of its needs.

BNE: What are the steps being taken by the agriculture department to become self sufficient in production of major crops like Rice, Mustard etc?
Director: Currently the total mustard production in the state is 1.85 lakh metric ton which is sufficient to meet 20% of the State’s mustard edible oil requirement. Currently, the area under mustard production is 2.87 lakh hectare. Additional 4 lakh hectare area clubbed with high yielding varieties, scientific package of practices and technical support of ICAR-DRMR will be brought under mustard in next 4 years. This will produce around additional 6 lakh metric ton of mustard which can meet the remaining 80% of the State’s edible oil requirement and help in achieving self sufficiency in mustard oil.

Similarly, current pulses area is only about 1.42 lakh hectare and production is 1.09 lakh metric ton. To meet the State's demand, additional 1.68 lakh hectare area is planned to be brought under pulses cultivation in the next four years.

Maize is an ingredient of animal feed, poultry feed and also used in silage making. The current area under maize cultivation in the state is 45,000 hectares (and production is around 1 lakh metric ton) which is planned to be expanded to 1.02 lakh hectares in next four years.

BNE: Status of cultivation of another major food crop Potato?
Director: Current potato area in the state is around 1.1 lakh hectare & production is around 7.50 lakh MT. Additional about 25,000 hectare area is planned to be brought under potato cultivation to be accommodated through introduction of varieties like Kufri Surya, K. Himalini. The targeted production is around 25 lakh metric ton after four years. These efforts are being supported by International Potato Center under APART for next two years. In the year 2023-24, an additional area of 5000 ha will be brought under potato cultivation (planting in Oct-Nov 2023)

BNE: Tell us something about Assam Fodder Mission?
Director: The State Govt has set up Assam Fodder Mission (AFM) for a period of seven years from 2022-2029 with an outlay of Rs 120 Cr. The key activities under the Mission include: (i) Fodder seed production & distribution (ii) Fodder production demonstrations (iii) Post harvest management & mechanization (iv) Awareness generation, training & capacity building. The annual requirement of green folder in the state is around 23 lakh metric ton but only 85,000 ton is produced in the state. Thus there is a deficit of around 22 lakh metric tons.In the first four years i.e. upto 2026, the target is to bring around 22,000 ha under fodder cultivation.

BNE: Please share some details about Assam Floriculture Mission.
Director: There is a great demand for flowers in temples, rituals, marriages and important functions/ events. The current floriculture trade in the State is valued at Rs 135 Cr. However, flowers worth only Rs 15 Cr are produced in the State and rest is coming from outside. Towards making the State self-sufficient in floriculture State is setting up Assam Floriculture Mission (AFM). The feasibility study has been done. The key activities under AFM would include (i) Area expansion under both cut and loose flowers (ii) Nursery development (iii) Post harvest management & value addition (iv) Training and apathy building (v) Market linkages.C urrent area under Floriculture is negligible.

Presently, Assam registered an area of 2200 ha under total floriculture which is less than 1% of the total area under floriculture in the country. The total area to be covered under floriculture crops under the Mission is 1088 Ha. Along with area expansion of 1088 Ha Mission in 6 years, it is expected another approx. 600 Ha area will be covered by fellow farmers motivated from the demonstrations. Hence a total of 1688 Ha will be covered by Floriculture crop at the end of the Mission.

BNE: What is the status of double cropping in the state? How far it has progressed?
Director: Under the CSS schemes like NFSM, RKVY and State sponsored schemes, to increase farmers’ income various programmes like Compact Demonstration and other crop cultivation programmes were carried out on crops like paddy, hybrid paddy, pulses, maize, oil seeds, millets, jutes etc. where good quality seeds were provided to farmers for better production. Under targeting rice fallow areas (TRFA) after harvest of the rice crops, the fallow land is converted to productive one by cultivating short duration crops like pulses and oil seeds where possibility of farmers’ income can be increase. Farm Machinery like Power tiller, Rotavator etc. and PP chemicals were also given at subsidized rate to help farmers for better crop production and ensuring enhanced cropping intensity.
In regards of doubling of farmers’ income, a sample survey was conducted in Morigaon last year. It was found that the net income of farmers in 2017-18 was Rs.84291.00 which increased to Rs.152707.00 in 2020-21. This shows that the income has increased by 81% in three years. This is likely to reach to around 100% in 2022-23.

BNE: Market linkage for agri products produced in the state is a major challenge. What is being done by the agriculture department to eliminate the role of middleman?
Director: The following market linkages for key agricultural commodities have been fostered by the Agricultural Department in the recent past:
a) Department has initiated different buyer-seller meet, where manufacturer/ processor etc. meet producers/ FPCs in a common platform to negotiate the products price without presence of middleman.

b) Processor also facilitate for contractual farming with FPCs directly, where there is a less chance of involvement of middleman.

c) The department has organized Agri-Horti Shows, Kisan Melas and Organic Expo for displaying different Agri-Horti produces so that farmers can directly sell their produces to the buyers.

BNE: What is the potential for value addition in the agriculture sector in Assam, and how is the government promoting this?
Director: The current post harvest losses in Assam in agri-food products vary from 5-40% which is quite high. The level of preservation or processing particularly for horticulture produce is very low which presents immense potential for value addition in agri-horti sector. The current available storage space is around 12.38 lakh MT of dry storage and 1.91 lakh MT of cold storage. This storage infrastructure will be ramped up by another 2 lakh MT (1.8 lakh MT new and 0.2 lakh MT renovation). Small cold storage structure like cold rooms and cold chambers will be promoted which are economically more viable. By the end of 2026, it is targeted that the post harvest losses in food crops will be brought down to 5% and 10% in horticulture (perishable) produce.

BNE: What are the incentives provided by the government to attract private investment in the agriculture sector in Assam?
Director: Currently, Seeds & fertilizers licenses (retail, wholesale & manufacturing) are issued & renewed through EODB. Pesticides licenses are issued through Ease Of Doing Business. Total 25 services in agricultural inputs are through EODB. Moreover, currently an agro processing policy is under formulation attract private investment of worth 200 crore in the sector by 2030 and create 35,000 additional employment opportunity in the sector by 2030.

BNE: What is the current status of agro‐processing industries in Assam, and what measures are being taken to promote their growth?
Director: A survey done by Grant Thornton under the World Bank financed Assam Agribusiness and Rural Transformation Project (APART) in 2019-20 revealed that there are around 4700 Nos. Agri & Food Enterprises in the State.

BNE: How is the government supporting the marketing and branding of agricultural products from Assam, both domestically and internationally?
Director: Lot of marketing initiatives has taken by the Department like consumer awareness programme, Publicity of Agri-Horti products, participating different exhibition at state as well as national level. Under MOVCD – NER scheme few organic products like Pineapple, Ginger, Turmeric, Assam lemon etc. are exported to abroad
Brand building initiative is taken by the state during the year 2021-22. Again ASOMA logo for Assam organic product has already been approved by the State Government. Other initiatives like Packaging, export promotion etc. are under process.

BNE: What are the opportunities for agribusiness startups in Assam, and how is the government encouraging entrepreneurship in this sector?
Director: Opportunities for agribusiness startups are in high value produce in horticulture & value addition through food processing. A subset of Agritech Startups has the big opportunity of solutioning challenges in early climate analytics and IoT led solutions in information gathering for supporting data driven business.

In encouraging entrepreneurship Government of Assam's APART supported Assam Agribusiness Growth Lab has so far incubated and accelerated 54 entrepreneurial ventures in agribusiness. These are being handheld for a curation of at least 6 high growth businesses that can add combined value to the economic scenario as well as play role models for future agripreneurs.

BNE: How is the government supporting the development of agriculture‐related infrastructure, such as cold storage facilities and transportation networks?
Director: Under APART, rehabilitation of around 250 km last mile rural link roads is being taken up to ensure seamless connectivity of production clusters to enterprise/ processing clusters, markets, warehouse or next higher class of roads. As on date, around 90 km of such roads have already been rehabilitated.

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