The Mission for Organic Value Chain Development for North-East Region (MOVCD-NER) is a Central Sector Scheme, a sub-mission under National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA), launched by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare for implementation in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura, during the 12th plan period.

In Nagaland, the Scheme was launched during 2015-16 with the Department of Agriculture as the Nodal Agency. The core objectives of the Scheme are:

• To develop crop commodity specific organic value chain and address gaps in organic crop production, wild crop harvesting, organic livestock management and processing, handling and marketing of organic agricultural products with necessary infrastructural, technical and financial support.
• To enable farmers to replace conventional farming/subsistence farming system into high value commercial organic enterprise in specific crops with end-to-end facilities for production, processing, storage and marketing.
• To facilitate partnerships between farmers and organic businesses [Local enterprises and / or Farmer Producer Companies (FPC)] in domestic and export markets.
• To develop certified organic production in a value chain mode to link growers with consumers and to support the development of entire value chain starting from inputs, seeds, certification, creation of facilities, for collection, aggregation, processing, marketing and brand building initiations.

The Department of Horticulture was included into the ambit of MOVCD-NER since 2016-17 and was entrusted to form 3 Farmer Producers’ Companies/Farmer Producers’ Organization (FPCs/FPOs) for Pineapple, Large Cardamom and Ginger. Keeping the potentiality of the crops, the Districts of Dimapur/Peren was selected for Organic Pineapple covering 800 Ha area, Phek for Organic Large Cardamom covering 500 Ha area and Tuensang for Organic Ginger Covering 500 Ha, with each district comprising of 500 registered farmers.

As envisaged in the guidelines for formation of FPOs given by the SFAC, two Resource Institute (RIs) were engaged to assist the Department in the formation of FPCs/FPOs i.e. Shibah Welfare, an NGO based in Dimapur for Pineapple and Large Cardamom and Eleutheros Christian Society, an NGO based at Tuensang for Ginger. The RIs were entrusted to initially form Farmers Interest Groups (FIGs) and has successfully formed 45 FIGs for Pineapple, 35 FIGs for Large Cardamom and 49 FIGs for Ginger. These FIGs will be converged crop wise and ultimately form the 3 FPCs/FPOs at the end of 3rd Year of the implementation of the Programme i.e. 2018-19.

So far, the Board of Directors for the FPCs have been selected and have started functioning and the Digital Signature Certificate of the Promoters has been completed, while the registration of FPCs is under process and the application for Director Identification Numbers (DIN) for the Promoter (Board of Directors) have been submitted. The formation of FIGs and then FPCs/FPOs is parallel with the Organic Certification of these areas by the end of the 3rd Year for Service Provider for Providing Handholding training, ICS Management & Certification which accreditation, Inspection and Certification will be obtained from OneCert Asia Agri Certification (p) Ltd., Jaipur for Pineapple and Large Cardamom with Shibah Welfare as the Service Provider for Providing Handholding training, ICS Management & Certification and from for Ginger through Armon International, New Delhi with the Eleutheros Christian Society as the Service Provider. the 1st year scope certificate has already been obtained and 2nd year conversion is nearing completion.

During 2017-18, an amount of Rs. 300.00 Lakhs was released to the Department by the Nodal Agency i.e. Agriculture Department for carrying out various activities under MOVCD-NER.

A major achievement under MOVCD-NER is that all payments are made through DBT directly to the 1500 beneficiaries’ account and so far assistance for Quality Seed Materials and Assistance for on-farm Production unit were released and the Department has also provided Computer sets along with furniture for all the 3 FPCs/FPOs Offices. In addition, the Department had also successfully participated in the 19th IFOAM Organic World Congress at India Expo Centre and Mart, Greater Noida w.e.f. 9th to 11th Nov 2017 where the 4 Organic farmers along with 2 Departmental Officers were given exposure during the event to meet and interact with various organic buyers/sellers of other States for promotion of the State’s organic products through creation of virtuous networks to facilitate trade and information sharing.

As part of the Information and Publicity component under MOVCD-NER, a book on organic package of practices for various horticultural crops is currently underway for publication and is expected to be released shortly which will help disseminate the information to the farmers regarding the successful organic cultivation of various crops.