Sea buckthorn farming being promoted in Lahaul

Tribune News Service

Dipender Manta

Mandi, May 29

The Lahaul & Spiti administration is promoting commercial farming of sea buckthorn to enhance farmers income in the region.

At present, sea buckthorn is being produced on the forestland in the district, where its production is quite low.

Lahaul and Spiti Deputy Commissioner Neeraj Kumar said: “There are four industries in Sundernagar, Shoghi, Paonta Sahib and Baddi for sea buckthorn products in the state, for which 80 per cent of the raw material is imported from Pakistan and China. There is scope for import substitution to match the demand of the raw materials, which is set to rise exponentially to 5,000 tonnes per year by 2025 for domestic industry.”

The DC added that the district was also experiencing effects of climate change, which directly affected the income of farmers in the district.

That is why the administration was focusing on encouraging farmers in the field diversification of crops to sustain their livelihood.

“We approached the agricultural university to provide fruit harvesting tools to reduce labour inputs and develop a proposal for setting up an integrated processing industrial unit-cum-incubation centre in the district for capacity building and producing value-added products of sea buckthorn,” he added.

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