Nagaland: Making sustainable livelihood a reality

April 29, 2022 53 Views No Comment

Leveraging smart horticulture for sustainable livelihood and self-employment in Nagaland’

Morung Express News
Kohima | April 29

Despite the advancement in knowledge, science and technology, the level of dedication, sincerity and hard work to one’s work at the present times is a matter of great consternation. “These days anybody is hardly at their place of posting unlike decades ago.”

This was stated by Advisor, Horticulture & Border Affairs, Mhathung Yanthan at the Horticulture conference organised by the Nagaland Horticulture Technical Association (NaHTA) on the theme ‘Leveraging Smart Horticulture for Sustainable Livelihood and Self-Employment in Nagaland’ at Capital Convention Centre, Kohima on April 28.

Yanthan said the Department of Agriculture and Horticulture are the backbone of the state’s economy that touches the lives of the people, and which can impact the livelihood of the farmers. The primary objective of the Agri & Allied Department, he pointed out is “to increase production, look into the welfare of the farmers, ensure food security, thereby improving the state’s economy.”

To this, he asserted on the need to exchange and share knowledge and information, and also interfaces with other research institutes and agencies between the sisters’ departments, which is lacking at the moment.

“Farmers are ready to grow, there will be no dearth of production but our farmers are discouraged because of lack of market” Yanthan observed.

Emphasising on the need to evolve with the constant change, he said the people in the department need to keep pace with ever growing knowledge, technologies and also learn, research, and be creative and innovative.

“We have to fore-go the redundant applications and strategies that do not work anymore, and get ourselves attuned with the present time and prepare to face the challenges proactively,” he stated. “We have all the qualities and advantages with ideal climatic conditions, however, we are unable to harness our signature crop,” noted Yanthan.

Adapt to mitigate problems
Agriculture, horticulture and farming have become a big challenge today due to climate change, high labour cost and population explosion, shrinking the availability of land, said Yanthan.

He called for adapting to these changes to mitigate the process of climate change by identifying crop varieties that are adaptable to current climate change and evolve strategies for implementation. While farming is becoming expensive due to high cost of labour, Yanthan urged professionals to come up with labour saving devices and machines that can assist farmers.

He also called for creating market infrastructures and linkages to help farmers to sell their produces.

Need qualitative outcome
While observing that implementation of any scheme in the state is done just for sake of implementation, Yanthan said there should be qualitative outcome and not any other way.

Before implementation of a scheme, he said departmental people should first fully understand the concept themselves, and then impart awareness programmes and motivate the people to apply for the scheme.

Without these processes, he said any implementation of a scheme no matter how beneficial it might be for the people will not bear desire results.

He advised the participants to recommit themselves and deliver justice to the profession that they have been trained for, adding “you are a fortunate few when thousands are struggling to get a job.

We are responsible to achieve sustainable livelihood.”

Commissioner & Secretary, Anenla T Sato said it is the bounded duty of every individual in the department to make sustainable livelihood and self-employment in the state a reality.

Though the Horticulture Department has huge potential to grow, the one peculiar problem she noted was “under utilisation of many potential officers” and lack of commitment in their assigned works.

These kind of work ethics, she stated will hamper the activities of the farmers and eventually derail and strangulate the department, which otherwise has the potential to change the economic scenario of the state.

Urging the officers recommit and take affirmative steps to take the department forward, she said it is the responsibility of each and every officer of the department to make sustainable livelihood a reality in the state.

The inaugural programme was followed by technical session with Prof Akali Sema, Dean, SASRD, Nagaland University, Medziphema Campus as the theme speaker and Amba Jamir, Integrated Mountain Initiative, Guwahati gave a motivational talk on ‘Team work makes the dream work.’

Source: https://morungexpress.com/-127