Dimapur, June 27: An agriculture scientist with a passion for transforming lives in the rural hinterland has sown the seeds of a green revolution in Nagaland.

Jalukie in Peren district has already spawned a band of farming entrepreneurs, thanks to the efforts of Chandan Rajkhowa, a senior scientist at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research in Medziphema. Under his guidance, Economics post-graduate Ruvuulie is toiling in his village at Punglwa B to make it big as a cultivator of organic passion-fruit.

Another person who shares this dream is Heikiding Nampeung, an excise officer posted in Kohima. He leads as many as 480 self-help groups, comprising over 14,000 farmers, and his goal is to transform the Zeliangrong region into a land of prosperity through organic passion-fruit cultivation.

Rajkhowa, who is from Assam, visits the fields regularly and helps farmers with scientific knowhow on protecting their crop from disease and getting a higher yield. To the farmers, he is actually more of a friend, philosopher and guide than a dispassionate scientist.

Standing on the verdant hilltop where he helped set up a 250-acre model passion fruit plantation, Rajkhowa points to the plateau on the horizon and speaks of his dream ? an airfield where cargo planes will land and take off from, carrying organic fruits and vegetables to lucrative markets.

He already has a vehicle for his dreams in the form of an NGO christened Ucos, an acronym for Union of Co-operative Societies. Ucos is planning to import passion-fruit plants from France, which are said to be ideal for the plains of the Jalukie region. The NGO intends to produce as much as 2,000 tonnes of the exotic fruit annually.

The target for this year was to plant 2.5 lakh saplings. Heikiding proudly points out that the farmers have already crossed the target by over 1 lakh saplings.

Another quiet man behind the endeavour is Surjya Nath Phukan, a Dimapur-based officer of the State Bank of India. He is breaking a tradition of banking in the region by facilitating soft loans to all the self-help groups affiliated to Ucos.

Stepping beyond the role of a banker, Phukan is even exploring markets where Naga farmers from the Zeliangrong region can sell their produce.