Pork worth Rs 92 crores imported by Nagaland annually

Staff Reporter
DIMAPUR, NOVEMBER 20

Nagaland is considered the highest consumption of pork in the country and every year an average of 10,000 tons of pork worth Rs 92 crores are imported by the State to meet its domestic demand from other states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. This information was revealed during the consultation workshop organized by the North East Rural Livelihoods Project (NERLP), a project funded by World Bank and in association with Innovative Change Collaborative (ICCO India).The event was organized under the theme ‘One day stakeholder consultation workshop on piggery sub sectors study done in Nagaland’ at Circuit House, Dimapur on November 19. The objective of the workshop was to improve rural livelihood in the state.
The experts in the workshop shared that the quantity of local consumption of pork is not proportionate with the produce of the pig farmers in the state. This has compelled Nagaland for the import of large quantity of pork from outside the state. The workshop underlined that local piggery farmers find it difficult to make a sustainable livelihood out of the farming.
The consultation workshop also aimed at sharing the research findings and recommendations of the study team to have the piggery sub sectors in Nagaland through market based interventions impacting livelihood of small farmers.
During the course of the workshop, the research team said that the pig population in Nagaland has declined to 28% during the period of 2003-2014.
The experts in the workshop said there are various factors that are serving as hindrances to the local farmers to produce adequate quantity of pork for local consumption. Some of those negative factors are high cost of feed, failure to supply quality piglets, lack of breeding policy, poor delivery services and high mortality of piglet.
The workshop then dwelt on the key challenges in the state scenario such as the regulated pork retail sale price by local town council, cost of piggery feed and piglets.
The workshop was attended by representatives of NRC on Pig, ICAR, KVK Dimapur, NEPED, NABARD, SRTT, SBI, Youth Net and other NGOs.
It may be mentioned here that NERLP is working in Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura for improving the livelihood of rural families. In Nagaland, the project is covering Peren and Tuensang districts.
(This newspaper is repeating this news today after certain rectification)