Economic independence should precede political independence and to achieve this objective, optimum use of of agricultural land has to be made, Nagaland Agriculture Minister Huska Sumi has said. "Without economic independence, peace, unity and progress would remain elusive in the State," Mr Sumi said while addressing the villagers of Naga United village, after inaugurating the Helping Hand Ministry Centre.

He also called upon the people to emulate the likes of multi-ethnic community as set up by the Naga United village and strive to achieve maximum agricultural production through hard work and judicious use of the available agriculture land.He said his target would be to convert one lakh hectares of land into agricultural land immediately adding to the 2.62 lakh hectares presently under the sector in the State.

Nagaland has 7.22 lakh hectares of agricultural land out of the total 16 lakh hectares.

Mr Sumi also emphasized on the Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN) Government’s buy-back policy for the farmers and assured that the Government would do all it could to boost agricultural production.

The Minister further said that the major failure of the Agriculture Department had been in identifying viable markets.

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