CARD | Centre for Agriculture and Rural Development

NER Development Initiative

Infrastructure Development

Sensing the need of adequate rural infra-structure and also recognizing that it can bring all sections of rural society together, CARD helps the communities to build necessary civic infra-structures. In this, school infra-structure, rural sanitation and housing have been rendered priority segments. These initiatives are improving quality of life in the adopted areas and bringing much needed comfort to women, children and poor in general in NER.

Agribusiness Centres

Catalyzing farm growth, strengthening rural economy and jobs creation in NER by establishing networks of Block level Agribusiness Centres in North East Region focusing mainly on Manipur, Meghalaya, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

Rural Craft Marketing

CARD intends to set up an Internet based website to market and thus provide a global presence to the products produced in rural areas of the various states of the country by rural artisans and craftsmen, so as to facilitate their cost effective marketing and exports.

Agro Ecotourism

Agro ecotourism is the form of tourism which capitalizes on rural culture as a tourist attraction. It is similar to ecotourism except that its primary appeal is not the natural landscape but a cultural landscape. If the attractions on offer to tourists contribute to improving the income of the regional population, Agro ecotourism can promote regional development. To ensure that it also helps to conserve diversity, the rural population itself must have recognized agro biodiversity as valuable and worthy of protection.

Stevia Cultivation

CARD has signed MoU with Stevia Biotech Pvt. Limited for cultivation of Stevia in NER and to create a platform for effective transfer of proven technologies. The MoU includes promotion and commercialization of by farmers capacity building/ Skill development in Stevia cultivation/ Stevia Dry leaf processing and then branding the products of Stevia. This totally would be on Contract Farming with signing an agreement with growers and Stevia Biotech Pvt Ltd responsible for buy back arrangements.

Establishment of Fruit Processing Unit

The project envisages setting up of fruit processing unit in Assam based on the raw material strength of NER. Manufacturing unit can focus on pulp, squash/ juices, jam & jellies, pickles, etc.

Value Added Spices

CARD promotes cultivation of organic turmeric and ginger with micro irrigation in various parts of NER to develop an ecosystem for the region to emerge as one of the largest suppliers for turmeric and ginger in the country and also to support for mini-dairy units. Spices are very common in Indian cuisine and variety of spices is used every day. The market for such spices is rapidly growing. Everyone wants some change in daily food with spicy taste and that is why use of specialty spices is increasing. There are some established national brands like MDH, Everest, and Badshah etc. who are in the process of capturing the urban and semi-urban markets. But their products are costly on account of high overheads. Rural and semi-urban market cannot always afford these costly products. Hence, there is a fairly good scope for a small scale unit to penetrate this market segment by offering competitive prices. CARD intends to facilitate establishment of a central processing and training facility centre for value added spices from various region of NER.