Shillong, July 17: The North Eastern Council (NEC) has called for an increase in agricultural productivity and cropping intensity to ensure food security in the region.

Yesterday, the council held a regional review meeting of agriculture and allied sectors here.

Chaired by council member C.K. Das, the meeting deliberated on animal husbandry and issues relating to area expansion of fruit and floriculture crops for different states of the region.

The meeting also deliberated on the need to formulate a regional plan for agriculture and allied sectors in the region apart from statewise review of ongoing NEC-funded projects.

Das said the problems plaguing the development of agriculture and its allied sectors in the region include unavailability of quality seeds, inadequate network of roads and rail lines connecting arable areas, limited availability of cultivable land, loss of top soil due to erosion, low productivity, low cropping intensity and inadequacy of inputs like fertilisers, pesticides, irrigation and farm credit.

However, he lauded the council's initiatives during the last few years to focus more on attaining self-sufficiency in the production of food items like eggs, fish and others.

Stating that agriculture and allied activities do not have a long gestation period, he said such activities yield quick returns and can lead to a quicker improvement of the people's socio-economic life.

Moreover, with the region experiencing a population explosion, he said the average land-holding is only about one hectare in Assam and lesser in other states. "We need to produce more from the limited available area. There is an urgent need to increase productivity as well as cropping intensity for ensuring food security in the region," Das said.

At the same time, he stressed on the simultaneous need to develop animal husbandry since a large percentage of the population in the region is non-vegetarian in its food habits.

Further, the meeting expressed the need to vest land rights to farmers, improving access to bank loans for agricultural purposes and conservation of agricultural gene pools of crops growing in the region.

In March this year, at the 22nd regional conclave of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, it was made known that the region has registered an increase in the production of foodgrains.

During the past decade, rice production increased by 26 per cent. Cumulative production of rice, which was only 55,396.2 thousand metric tonnes in the region in 2005, rose to 68,205.28 thousand metric tonnes, marking a growth of 26.11 per cent. The deficit in the food production in the region was 8.33 per cent in 2012 but it came down to 2.51 per cent in 2014.