NFPIP push to transform Nagaland’s food processing sector

Our Correspondent
Kohima | March 17

Despite being a resource rich state, the food processing industry in Nagaland is practically nonexistent and would need to be vitalized in order to tap its full potentials.

This was stated in Nagaland Food Processing Industries Policy (NFPIP) under the Department of Industries & Commerce tabled at the recently concluded 6th session of the 14th Nagaland Legislative Assembly (NLA) in Kohima.

The Policy stated that there is ample scope of having food processing units at commercial scale in the State.

With availability of various food produces including organic products of marketable surplus in the State, food processing is an area of importance for addressing the excess produces and its wastages, doubling farmers’ income, creating employment avenues for youths and nurturing prospective entrepreneurs in the State.

The production of various foods like spices, fruits, vegetables, cereals, pulses, honey, dairy products, meat, fish, etc. from the State has the potential to reach commercial scale given the collective support and thrust by both the Government and the public, the Policy stated.

Nagaland having the comparative advantage in agri-horti based production; food processing industries can offer a vast scope for farmers, entrepreneurs and investors to capitalize on.

Agriculture and horticulture

The agri-horti sector in Nagaland offers potential for development of agro and food processing industries. Nature has endowed the State richly with adequate rainfall and fertile soil and in addition, salubrious climate combine to yield rich agri-horti produces.

Nagaland, basically being of agrarian economy majorly depends on agriculture and the main crops are rice, millet, maize and pulses, while cash crops like sugarcane, potato, tea, coffee, tuber crops and various spices are becoming popular, the Policy stated.

Moreover, in recent years, progressive farmers are learning to adopt mechanization along with value addition for their products and commercial agro enterprises are emerging. Some of the agri-horti produces that are already in the market are pineapple, passion fruit, kiwi fruit, bamboo-shoot, Naga King Chilly, large cardamom, ginger, pumpkin, chow-chow, tree tomato, banana, French bean (Khollar or Rajma), tea, turmeric, local cereals, millets and pulses which are being produced in commercial scale.

Besides, there is a wide scope to explore Minor Forest Products (MFPs) as well which are uncultivated fruits, vegetables, spices and medicinal herbs.

With the upscale in production of various agri-horti produces, there arises issue of surplus and wastages due to factors like uncertainty of markets for buy backs and lack of proper storage and transportation facilities.
This deficiency can be tackled by bringing food processing industries into play with the establishment and creation of requisite infrastructural facilities down the line.

Thus, the State having tremendous potential in terms of agriculture and horticulture production occupies ability to foster food processing industry, the Policy stated.

Livestock & poultry
The Policy stated that the state rears a good population of cattle for meat and milk purpose, including poultry, to deliver the local market demand.

The State being predominantly non-vegetarian; rearing of pig, buffalo, sheep, goat, rabbit and poultry are preferred. Mithun, practically being wildlife, is also slaughtered for meat purpose and in recent years, efforts have been given to breed and increase the population of its species for commercial purpose. Presently, there are only a couple of organized slaughter houses in the State, whereas, most of the slaughtering takes place in an unorganized way.

Likewise, even the existing retail meat outlets are still run unhygienically and practiced traditionally. As such, the scenario offers a tremendous opportunity to exploit these potential areas by putting in place modern abattoirs and modernized meat shops.

There is also a good population of milking cows and buffalos to fetch milk in meeting nutritional requirements to the masses, the Policy stated.

Although, milk and dairy products form an integral dietary component of the population, the existing dairy industry is incapable to meet even the domestic consumers’ demand as the industry is still small in the State and shows its presence only in a couple of Districts.

In the absence of proper dairy industry in majority of the Districts, milk is sold by the local milkman through an unorganized fashion. Therefore, the dairy industry needs a facelift by organizing the sector and developing more dairy industries at identified locations.

A conservative estimate foresees that the State will be able to export meat and dairy products and is projected as follows:

Premium pork – 2(000 tons) per annum in the form of frozen pork and pickles @ 166 tons per month.

Value added products of milk in the form of tonned milk (146 MT/annum), Lassi (87600 cups/annum), dahi (87600 cups/annum), paneer (1000kg/annum), ice cream (18.25 MT/annum). (Source: Department of AH & Vety Services, Nagaland)

Fishery
Nagaland is blessed with five sources for production of fish. These are ponds and tanks, Paddy-cum-fish

culture, reservoirs, rivers/streams and lakes/weirs/swamp.

The Policy stated that the demand of fish has been estimated to the tune of 22,000 MT @ 11kg per capita consumption requirement as recommended by WHO when compared to the present population of 19,80,602 persons (2011 census).

The total area utilized for fish production as of 2019-2020 statistics is 10436.07 Ha, producing about 9448.12 MT of fish.

The State has an estimated potential total area of around 1,12,500 Ha of inland cultured fisheries; while in terms of inland captured fisheries from natural resources, it has potential across a span of 1,600 Kms as rivers & streams; and around 4,000 Ha of lake reservoirs & swamps are available for potential utilization.

As per the Vision Document 2030 action plan of the Department of Fisheries & Aquatic Resources, it is projected to increase the fish production to 19,874.20 MT by 2030 with per capita consumption of 10.03 Kgs/person. Thereby, the State will be in a position to even export fishes or to at least be self-sufficient. (Source: Vision Document 2030 action plan of the Department of Fisheries & Aquatic Resources)

Bee Keeping & Honey Processing
The Policy stated that the state with its rich providence of vegetation falls under one of the 18 mega bio-diversity hotspots and it enables varieties of flowering plants to thrive giving rise to abundant nectar and pollen for bees to collect. For centuries, beekeeping has been commonly practiced in the State and with the passage of time traditional knowledge and experience have been passed down to the community till this day.

Out of the State’s geographical area of 16,579 Sq. Km, Nagaland has the potential to carry out more than 22 Lakh bee colonies, economically and could produce an average amount of 10,000 MT of honey and 10 MT of bee wax, annually, the Policy stated.

Bee Keeping is given a high priority in the State mainly to support rural livelihood. However, honey is sold mostly in loose form and there are only few small processing units making downstream products.

Therefore, Nagaland Honey being mostly derived from organic and natural multi-flora vegetation, the sector does offer good opportunity for value addition and processing.