Agartala: The present Agriculture Department has laid stress on making the state self-sufficient in potato and onion, and by this season two districts including Khowai and Dhalai will become self-sufficient in paddy cultivation.
This was informed by Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare Minister Ratan Lal Nath while launching a Project-cum-Workshop on Rabi Onion under the project Rabi Onion – a promising cash crop for economic upliftment and livelihood improvement of rural Tripura, organized by the College of Agriculture, Tripura, and the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), Tripura Regional Office, at the College of Agriculture, Tripura.
The Minister said that the main motto is to become self-sufficient, and that is why the present state government is working in this direction by giving importance to agriculture.
“For the development of the state, 46% comes from agriculture and the rest comes from tourism, trade, etc. Our main base is agriculture. Agri means horti, agri, fishery and ARDD. Our main aim is to become self-reliant. In paddy, out of 8 districts, three districts are self-sufficient and two districts—Khowai and Dhalai—are nearby. This year both will become self-sufficient. Now we are giving stress on self-sufficiency in vegetables and potato. Three things are important: potato, tomato and onion. Potato comes under the main food list. Our state has also started cultivating potato and we are stressing on it. Using ARC methods we are cultivating potato and production has also increased,” said the minister.
He said that onion cultivation in Tripura is no longer unthinkable, as Tripura Agricultural College, NABARD Agartala, and the Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Department have jointly worked on it, and the Agricultural College has successfully demonstrated it in experimental farms with 12 Rabi onion varieties.
“Tripura Agricultural College has been cultivating different varieties of onion on their land for the last four years in three seasons to determine the suitable varieties and timing of planting onions in different seasons. After the success of the initial trials of Rabi onion from 2022 to 2024, NABARD Agartala Centre has approved a project for the welfare of the farming community by determining the technology of Rabi onion cultivation. It is expected that by following proper methodological and strategic practices, the production of Rabi onion can be increased across the state of Tripura with the hope of getting very good yields. This will help in reducing the demand-supply gap in onion production as well as reducing Tripura’s dependence on onion import from other states,” he said.
The event was attended by Dr. Fani Bhushan Jamatia, Director, Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare; Deepak Das, Director, Horticulture and Soil Conservation; Anil Kotmire, General Manager, NABARD; Pradeep Baran Roy, Member, ICAR-IMC; Rajiv Debbarma, Mission Director, MODCDNER; and eminent guests from various institutions.
