On January 1, 2021, The Union Territory Administration of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) signed an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED). The agreement will give a major thrust for marketing the Horticulture Produce.
i.NAFED and the J&K Government will work on branding & marketing of fruit crops & establishment of market linkages for exotic, non-seasonal vegetables & flowers in the metro cities of India.
ii.The MoU was signed by Navin Kumar Choudhary, Principal Secretary of Agriculture & Horticulture Department, J&K & Sanjeev Kumar Chadha, Managing Director of NAFED in the presence of J&K’s Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha.
Key Points:
i.As part of the agreement, NAFED will invest INR 1700 Crores for Implementing High Density Plantations across 5500 Hectares in the next 5 years (2021-25).
ii.High Density Plantations of Apple, Walnut, Cherry, Pear Flowers are expected to increase the income of farmers by upto 3-4 times. High Density Plantations of Apples will be implemented at Kishtwar & Bhaderwah.
iii.NAFED will establish 20 Farmer-Producer Organization, one in each district.
iv.It will also construct 3 cold storage clusters – one each in North Kashmir, South Kashmir & Kathua at a cost of INR 500 Crores.
v.For the purpose of Branding & Marketing, NAFED will ensure Geographical Indications Tags (GI Tags) for fruit crops like Apple, Walnut, Cherry, Olive, Litchi.
Post-Harvest Infrastructure:
Both entities will also ramp up the post-harvest infrastructure in the state for agriculture by building Cold Atmosphere Stores, Grading & Processing facilities.
Nurseries for root stock:
Hi-tech nurseries for raising root stock will be developed and they will be imported directly to the farmers.
Virus Indexing Labs:
The agreement also involves setting up virus indexing labs for testing the quality of planting material.
Recent Related News:
i.On September 20, 2020, the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) inked MoU with Army for the development and operationalization of Airstrip in Kishtwar.
About National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED):
Chairman – Bijender Singh
Headquarters – New Delhi
About Jammu & Kashmir:
Lakes – Dal Lake, Nagin Lake, Wular Lake, Surinsar Lake, Mansar Lake.
National Parks (NP)– City Forest (Salim Ali) NP , Dachigam NP , Kishtwar NP.
