Horticulture dept. conducts training on low-cost preservation unit

Our Correspondent

Kohima, March 8 (EMN): Following the ‘One District-One Product’ (ODOP) initiative, the Kohima District Horticulture Office organised a the one-day training programme on low cost preservation unit under MIDH 2020-2021 at its office complex on Tuesday.

Delivering the keynote address at the inaugural session, the District Horticulture Officer (DHO), S Senka Jamir, said the ODOP initiative was aimed at fostering balanced regional development across all districts of the country. He stated that the idea was to select brand and promote the product from each district of the country for enabling holistic socio-economic growth across all regions. He pointed out that the mandate of the ODOP programme included identifying, understanding and solving India for all 739 districts in India including 11 districts of Nagaland.

To initiate ODOP approach in Nagaland under the Prime Minister Micro and Food Processing Enterprises (PM FME) scheme, the directorate of Industries and Commerce had organised a stakeholders meeting with the line departments including Horticulture department in 2020, informed the officer. During the meeting it was decided that the state would identify food products for a district keeping ODOP in view the existing clusters and availability of raw material. Seeing the potentialities, he stated that ‘pickle products’ was identified as ODOP for Kohima district.

Jamir stated that the department of Horticulture has laid emphasis on low cost preservation of fruit and vegetables in Kohima district to fulfill the objectives of the ODOP.

Meanwhile, the DHO pointed out that fruits and vegetables are an important supplement to the human diet as they provide the essential minerals, vitamins and fibre required for maintaining health. He, however, stated that the abundance of production could not be fully utilised for various reasons and added that about 25-30% of fruits and vegetables are wasted due to spoilage.

Jamir also pointed out that insufficient transport facilities or poor packaging materials coupled with inadequate local cold storage facilities, the surplus products are spoiled causing heavy loss for the farmers. In order to solve the problems, he has suggested creation/ expansion of cold storage facilities in the fruit and vegetable producing villages to ensure supply of fresh fruits and vegetables throughout the year.

According to him, the annual horticulture production was estimated around 250 million metric tonnes.

The deputy director of Horticulture, Meyasashi was the resource person of the technical session. He gave hands-on training about the low cost preservation of fruits and vegetables.

Horticulture inspector, R Chumben Patton, chaired the programme, while the vote of thanks was proposed by horticulture assistant, Medoneinuo Semou.

The participants were also provided with low cost preservation unit kits.