SHILLONG: Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Thursday said the impact of climate change was felt everywhere in his efforts to rescue Agriculture Minister, Banteidor Lyngdoh who was questioned by Independent MLA SK Sunn, on risk of reduced agricultural production due to climate change.
During question hour in the Assembly on Thursday, Sangma said, “The climate change impact is everywhere.” However, he said production of rice had gone up in the last three years.
Pointing out that rice production has reduced, Sunn asked whether the department took note of any noticeable impact on agriculture and fruit production as a result of climate change, to which Lyngdoh said he required notice to respond to the question.
To another query raised by Sunn on the implementation of National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture formulated to address agricultural issues in relation with climate change, Lyngdoh said he had to study the department carefully as he had taken charge of it for about one month back.
“As the agriculture department is very important department, please bear with me for the moment and I assure satisfactory reply maybe next time,” to which Sunn said, “We will bear for a day or two.” However, Lyngdoh said some more time is needed and not only a day or two.
The inability of Lyngdoh to provide a satisfactory reply to a supplementary query on Agriculture Engineering prompted Sangma to stand up and informed that Agriculture Engineering was a wing of the Agriculture Department which provided training to people and power tillers at subsidized rates.
Lyngdoh, in reply to query by Sunn said the department was implementing different schemes which include seed farm, seed testing Laboratory, seed mission, soil testing laboratory, maize development through cluster approach, organic manures, Plant Protection including Integrated Pest Management, Bio Control Laboratory and Pesticides Testing Laboratory, Supply of Pumpsets/Treadle pumps to farmers.
In addition, the other schemes are State Rice Mission, Ramie Crop, Agriculture Information, Farmers Institute, Basic Agriculture Training Center, Integrated Agriculture Training Center (IATC), Agriculture Engineering (Mechanical), supply of Agriculture Machineries, corpus fund on crop Insurance, Agriculture Research Station and Laboratories, Integrated Technology Enabled Agri Management System (iTEAMS).
HSPDP MLA Renikton Lyngdoh Tongkhar asked whether steps were taken to create awareness programmes for the famers about the various schemes, to which Lyngdoh said, “Yes.”