Shillong, Dec 4: The first Farmers’ Parliament was inaugurated by Meghalaya chief minister, Conrad K. Sangma on Tuesday.

The two-day Farmers’ Parliament is being organized by the department of Agriculture in collaboration with Meghalaya Basin Development Agency and Hill Farmers’ Union.

Addressing the farmers, Conrad said that the government has initiated the farmers’ parliament to understand the plights of people from the farming community and assist them through different pro-active policies and such parliament should be also organised in all districts of the state.

The chief minister also suggested the need to create Farmers’ Commission to address concerns of the farming community and look at solution to tackle problems being faced by farmers in the state.

“This parliament allows government officials and policy makers to meet at a single platform to find out ways and means to address the challenges and problems affecting the farming community in the state. It is important for us to hear the farmers and we believe that through this parliament, there will be direct engagement which will enable us to frame our policies in sync with the farmers’ needs,” Conrad said.

The chief minister informed that the state government has initiated different programmes to help the farmers and enable them to have direct access to markets and add value to agriculture and horticulture products.

The Chief Minister assured government’s support to further add value to agriculture and horticulture products, as he pointed out to fruits going wasted such as jackfruit and others.

Like the world’s biggest food innovation exhibition which was held in Paris this year where the Chief Minister himself had led a delegation from the state, he informed that a food exhibition and business meet should be held in Meghalaya next year to provide a platform for business and technology transfer in the field of agriculture and horticulture and food processing.

Agriculture Minister, Banteidor Lyngdoh, Additional Chief Secretary and Agriculture Production Commissioner, K.N. Kumar also spoke at the inauguration of the Farmers’ Parliament.

Various sessions were conducted in which representatives of the Hill Farmers’ Union from various districts participated and posed a number of questions to the officers and aired the plights of the farmers including inaccessible to markets and selling of goods at low price due to suppression by middle men.