SHILLONG: The impact of climate change is being felt everywhere, including the agriculture sector, said Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Thursday.
Sangma’s comment comes in the context of a question raised by Independent MLA SK Sunn who wanted to know the risk of reduced agricultural production due to climate change.
Pointing out that rice production has reduced, Sunn asked whether the department took note of any noticeable impact on agriculture and fruit production, to which Lyngdoh said he requires notice for the question.
To another query raised by Sunn on the implementation of the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture formulated to address agricultural issues in relation with climate change, Lyngdoh said he has to study the department carefully as he has taken charge of it a month back.
“As the Agriculture Department is very important, please bear with me for the moment and assure satisfactory reply maybe next time,” said the minister. To this, Sunn said, “We will bear for a day or two.”
However, Lyngdoh said some more time is needed.
The inability of Lyngdoh to provide a satisfactory reply to a supplementary query on agriculture engineering prompted Sangma to stand up and inform that agriculture engineering is a wing of the department that provides training to people and power tillers at subsidised rates.
The chief minister said that production of rice has gone up in the last three years.
Replying to a query by Congress MLA David Nongrum on the amount of corpus fund on crop insurance and the procedure to avail of such funds, Lyngdoh said it is Rs 16 lakh and that beneficiaries can write to the BDO or the district agriculture officer.
Lyngdoh, in reply to a query by Sunn, said the department is 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.
HSPDP MLA Renikton Lyngdoh Tongkhar asked whether steps are being taken to create awareness among famers about the various schemes. Lyngdoh answered in affirmative.
