Kohima, Sep 3 (IANS) Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio on Wednesday said that with the Coffee Board coming back and helping the Department of Land Resources to regrow coffee, the state would produce much more of it, as there is a potential for plantation of the crop on more than 10 lakh hectares.

The Chief Minister, while addressing the 219th Coffee Board Meeting in Kohima, said that with successful coffee plantation, ‘Viksit Bharat 2047’ can also serve as a challenge to make coffee an identity of Nagaland.

Coffee plantations started in Nagaland somewhere in the 1980s, with the support of the Coffee Board, but failed – not because of the farmers but because the Board could not manage it, he said.

Rio noted that the farmers of Nagaland also produce exotic fruits like avocados, persimmons, kiwi, dragon fruit, and pineapples.

The Chief Minister stated that the other issue that needed to be worked upon the state was the Naga political issue which has resulted in no investors in all the industries of the state, citing the case of the Nagaland Paper Mill, which partnered with Hindustan Paper, as a huge giant corporation that had failed and could not be revived, leaving the bamboos that were rolling out to die out and go to waste.

Saying that the sugar mill factory in Dimapur town was also failing due to congestion and could not function, as there was no place to cultivate sugarcane, he assured that it may take a while for industries to come in the state even despite the potential of raw material that is available locally and has no problem of transport, and raw materials cannot be imported due to produce equality and price competition.

He, therefore, emphasised that without industries and without imports, the most viable were the farmers themselves, if they can utilise their soil and the land for coffee production, and as the state prohibits the use of fertilisers, produce organic coffee.

He also asked the Coffee Board members to undertake field visits to conduct interactions and to motivate the farmers, provide training to produce the right coffee beans and provide nursery plantation materials.

The meeting was chaired by Coffee Board CEO/Secretary Kurma Rao M. The members would be holding meetings with different stakeholders and would also be visiting coffee plantation farms during their 3-day stay in the state.

–IANS

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