HT Correspondent
Tezpur, May 19: Deputy commissioner Deba Kumar Mishra inaugurated a Virtual Buyer Seller Meet for Tezpur Litchi on Thursday which was held at the conference hall of Tezpur University Guest House, organised by Biswanath College of Agriculture, Assam Agriculture University in joint association with Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), office of the District Agriculture Officer, and Assam Agribusiness and Rural Transformation Project (APART) and Sonitpur district administration.
In his inaugural speech, deputy commissioner Deba Kumar Mishra welcomed all participants to the virtual meet and stressed on the importance of providing a platform for interested buyers and sellers to interact so that both parties get an optimum price for the fruit which has seen a huge demand in both domestic and international markets in the last few years. He also appealed to the Farmers’ Producers Organisations to focus on enhancing the production of the famous Tezpur litchi to meet the demand for the fruit, which was conferred with the GI tag in 2015 for its unique taste and flavour.
District agriculture officer i/c Dilip Gayan assured all litchi producers present to extend all possible help to chart out a proper plan for expanding crop plantation and production and appealed to the farmers to make judicious use of pesticide and take proper care and ensure that the quality of litchi is maintained every year.
Dr Pallab Kumar Sarma, chief scientist, AICRPDA and coordinator, CBBO Local Office, Biswanath College of Agriculture, AAU, coordinator, TEC, Tezpur University, Prof Manuj Kr Hazarika, Prof Laxmikant Badwaik, department of FET, circle officer, Tezpur, Pankaj Borah, consultant, APEDA, Dr Archana Nath, principal, ETC, Naltoli, Hareswar Das, representatives of Agnigarh FPC, DAMC, Sonitpur, Saurabh Srivastava, local litchi farmers, officials of department of agriculture were present in the meet which was organised primarily with the objective to find potential buyers of Tezpur litchi. The FPO, Agnigarh Producer Company limited is supported by NABARD and promoted by Biswanath College of Agriculture under the Central Sector Scheme on Formation and Promotion of FPCs. The virtual meet was also attended by individual buyers, representatives of various export companies who have expressed interest in procuring litchi for the coming harvesting season.
Officials who were present made presentations and sessions on scope of export, industry linkage and value addition, quality of litchi and marketing, availability of litchi and harvest window, buyer-seller discussion were held during the latter half of the day.
