The Hindu Business Line : North-East agri expo at Dimapur today

The event is expected to generate investor and stakeholder interest in the latent agri-potentials of the largely undiscovered North-Eastern markets. The five-day expo would also highlight the innovative agri equipment, technologies and services developed in the North-Eastern States, while acting as a platform for farm sector players to explore opportunities for contract farming, sourcing, processing, value addition, distribution and marketing. Private players can also identify bankable agricultural, horticulture, and agri-processing projects in the region.

Mr Subodh Kant Sahai, Union Minister for Food Processing Industries, Mr Kantilal Bhuria, Union Minister of State for Agriculture, Mr Neiphiu Rio, Chief Minister of Nagaland, and a host of other dignitaries would be present at the inauguration. The Expo, which is supported by the Ministry of Agriculture, and co-sponsored by the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region as well as the Ministry of Rural Development, is being organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), with the Government of Nagaland acting as the host.

"The Expo will provide to the private players a glimpse of the opportunities that lie in the area of agri infrastructure development, such as, building world-class cold chains and pack-houses," a CII release said here.

The Expo will focus on the potentials of high-value horticultural crops, such as, floriculture (orchid, lilium, anthurium, rose), spices (ginger, large cardamom, pepper, turmeric); fruits (passion fruit, pineapple, khasi mandarin, kiwi fruit), and medicinal and aromatic plants; bamboo, rubber and other plantation crops; agricultural products (aromatic rice, pulses, cereal, tubers); sericulture; animal husbandry; dairy and fisheries; food processing, organic cultivation, and agro and food processing technologies, equipment and services.