The North Eastern Regional Agricultural Marketing Corporation Ltd (NERAMAC)  procured more than 140 MT of produce like pineapple, avocado, black rice, cashew nut, large cardamom, cinnamon, and black pepper, etc. in 2023 under its umbrella brand ‘NE Fresh’, said Union Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) on Wednesday.

The NERAMAC is a PSU under the DoNER Ministry. It supports farmers and producers of the region to obtain remunerative prices for their produce, as well as to enhance the agricultural, procurement, processing, and marketing infrastructure of the region.

“The Corporation has a product basket of over 130 products in the retail segment. Around 30 local entrepreneurs and MSMEs associated with it for branding and marketing of their processed products. Retail products are marketed through 12 stalls and retail outlets covering seven cities and towns. They included two, One Station One Product (OSOP) stalls at Kamakhya (Assam) and Dimapur (Nagaland) railway stations,” the ministry said.

It said NERAMAC also launched the brand ‘NERAMAC premium’ for marketing of GI tagged products.

The ministry said the Corporation has facilitated the user authorization registration of 1,308 farmers of North East Region (NER) for all 13 GI registered Agri-Horti products during the year and added that this is a significant milestone for the development of this sector of the region.

“NERAMAC participated in and organised 17 events and covered around 2000 farmers and entrepreneurs. During the year, the cashew processing plant (CPP) of NERAMAC at Agartala (Tripura) revived and started functioning with fund support from the North Eastern Council (NEC) and Integrated Ginger Processing Plant (IGPP) at Byrnihat, Meghalaya revived under PPP mode,” it said.

The ministry also informed that the North East Cane and Bamboo Development Council (NECBDC) completed a plantation of 900 hectares in the three districts of Assam, which covered 3.30 lakh saplings and 750 farmers’ beneficiaries.

“Capacity building, skill updegradation, and training are the main activities of NECBDC. During the period, NECBDC conducted 21 training and skill development training programmes and has trained more than 463 persons in cane and bamboo,” it said.

Around 115 occupational health safety kits were also distributed to artisans of NECBDC clusters of Assam and Manipur, it added.