Minister Incharge of Community & Rural Development AT Mondal on Wednesday the state Government likely to tie up the organic farmers or entrepreneurs with the 5 star hotels in the state to sell their produce.
Addressing a gathering at the 4th Saras Aajeevika Fair held in Shillong, Mondal admitted that the main problem with organic cultivation is marketing and the farmers find it difficult to get their returns.
Stating that some people are getting into cultivation, the Minister said, “Usually we go for organic cultivation but the problem with organic cultivation is marketing because if you ask farmers or producers to go for organic farming the main problem comes that the expenditure that they incur for the organic farming is not coming out when they sell their produces in the local market.”
In its effort to find a bigger and sustainable market for these organic farmers, the C&RD Minister said, “We got to also think out that even Shillong is now having 5 start hotels whether we can tie-up with them with our entrepreneurs so that they can sell their produce directly to these organisations which will encourage them in a greater way.”
The 4th Saras Aajeevika Fair was held in Meghalaya. The event evoked great response from the artisan community from across the state. Minister in charge of Community and Rural Development AT Mondal was the chief Guest on the occasion. The 8 day event showcases diverse cuisines and unique indigenous products.
The ‘SARAS Aajeevika Mela’ provides a platform to the participants to sell and promote their handmade products and create marketing linkages with various selling platforms. The event was held at polo ground Shillong.
It may be mentioned that the state Government plans to hold another Saras Mela in the month of November.
Addressing the gathering, Mondal expressed satisfaction with the B2B (Business 2 Business) model that the state has adopted, however, stresses on the need to shift focus on the consumers or B2C (Business 2 Consumers) model for selling the products.
The Minister also said despite the Meghalaya produce being of great quality but they failed to get proper market.
“Our Lakadong turmeric and black paper from Garo hills are of the top quality not only in the country but also in the world but our intention gets defeated when we go for marketing because our producers are not getting the market,” he said.
He also mentioned that the products which are coming from outside they flood the state market and with so many advertisement on media both in social media and so also in the electronic and print media, even the people of the state also get carried away to get those products then the state own original indigenous products which serves better way as per their quality is concern.
“We need to get emphasis to get a link in the market, even though we are tying up with the organisations to put into the online platform so the sales in Amazon and all these are quite high. So we got to see whether we can channelize products to the market or not. We need to reorganise our infrastructure abit, so that way we can see every stall get equal footfall.
He also said the C&RD department along with the livelihood mission should unite together in helping the entrepreneurs and the state products find markets.
“This is where I think our department and the mission should unite together and to see that whether it is a single brand or different brand can be marketed through us also even through outside the country. …. if not in foreign country but in the main part of the country we can look into it, because without proper advertisement and without proper awareness people will not go for these products,” Mondal said.
It may be mentioned that under the Meghalaya State Rural Livelihoods Society there are around 4, 27,196 women belonging from the poor and marginalized families who have been mobilised through 54 thousand self help groups. These are from across 6000 villages covering 12 districts.