Governor pleads for a floriculture Hub Centre in Sikkim

Gangtok: Governor of Sikkim, Mr. Balmiki Prasad Singh, called on the Union Agriculture Minister, Mr. Sharad Pawar and requested him to take urgent steps to create a floriculture Hub Centre in Sikkim, inform a release by PRO to Governor.

It may be recalled that Sikkim has succeeded in earning a place in the floriculture map of the world. The need is to boost the efforts of the farmers in a manner that brings them sustainable livelihood and remunerative prices.

The Government of Sikkim along with the assistance provided by the Government of India had built requisite infrastructures for facilitating post harvest handling and marketing. Efforts are on to enhance the production and productivity of cut flowers and bulbs covering a range of exotic flowers.

With all these activities already in place, what is required is a centralized Hub Centre for Floriculture promotion and propagation. This Centre should have the state of the art facilities not only to promote production of cut flowers, disbursing of planting materials or post harvest handling but it should also be a place for training of farmers and coordination of marketing activities.

The Union Agriculture Minister has promised to look into the matter urgently and to do the needful. Besides, creation of Hub Centre for Floriculture in Sikkim, the Governor also wanted ICAR Centre in Sikkim to provide special focus on organic farming and Sikkim centric research in horticulture.

Source: Sikkim Reporter