Promoting Chakhao A strategic approach to marketing Manipur's unique Black Rice
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Dr Leishangthem Jeebit Singh and Dr Gayatri Khangjarakpam
Contd from previous issue
Below are some interventions to enhance the marketing:
1. Promotion: Encourage familiarity with Chakhao outside of Manipur through targeted campaigns showcasing its nutritional and economic benefits. This can be achieved via media adverts, featuring as a special delicacy in restaurants, and through demonstrations.
2. Quality Standards: Implement strict quality parameters after harvesting, including sorting and grading grains. Improve product packaging for consumer convenience.
3. Marketing Linkages: Create a robust supply chain including farmers, traders, processors, and consumers. Partnerships with relevant associations and private sectors can help in distribution and premium pricing.
4. Infrastructure: Construct rice processing factories and improve transportation for easier distribution. Support millers with high-tech and efficient rice milling equipment and provide maintenance training.
5. Training: Provide comprehensive training on benefits of Chakhao, innovative rice production technologies, and post-production handling techniques. Encourage group plantations and train value addition actors.
6. Government Policies: Implement policies to reduce black rice importation, offer subsidies on farming necessities, and promote special incentives to expand in the export market. Provide assistance with loans, product certifications, and licences to rice processors. Establish seed production sites, support millers with appropriate packaging materials, and improve storage practices.
Challenges in Promoting and Marketing
1. Lack of Awareness: A major challenge is the lack of awareness about Chakhao outside of Manipur. The various health and nutritional benefits of this rice need to be projected to the larger consumer population. Overcoming this requires targeted promotional activities.
2. Quality Management: Ensuring and maintaining quality standards is another challenge. After harvest, the grain product must be sorted and graded according to quality standards. This process can be difficult and time-consuming.
3. Market Linkages: Establishment of a value chain is crucial - from the farmer to the processor to the consumer. Without clear linkages, the product may not reach the desired consumer base.
4. Infrastructure: Infrastructure, such as adequate processing facilities and effective transportation systems, is often insufficient, hindering the production and distribution processes.
5. Training: Farmers and processors may lack the required knowledge or skills to effectively grow, process, and market the product. Capacity-building efforts are therefore essential.
6. Competition: The market might be flooded with other black rice varieties, posing a threat of misbranding or admixture. This stresses the need for characterization and GI registration to distinguish Chakhao from other black rice.
7. Government Policies: Inadequate government policies to support local farmers and producers, like minimum support prices or subsidies, can limit the production and marketing of Chakhao.
Addressing these challenges necessitates integrated efforts from farmers, processors, marketers, government bodies, and other stakeholders.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Chakhao, the black aromatic rice from Manipur, presents vast potential in terms of its nutritional value, health benefits, and socioeconomic implications. Leveraging its GI registration, Chakhao's distinctive properties can be used for value-addition, waste utilization, and efficient marketing. However, for the full realization of its potential, strategic efforts such as comprehensive training, supportive government policies, maintaining quality standards, and infrastructural improvements are crucial. This underscores the need for increased research, improved value chain, and promotion to transform this traditional crop into a globally recognized superfood, benefiting producers, consumers, and society at large.
Dr Leishangthem Jeebit Singh, MPS Grade – II (P) and Former Agriculture Officer Dr Gayatri Khangjarakpam, Assistant Professor, College of Agriculture, CAU, Imphal
[email protected]
Contd from previous issue
Below are some interventions to enhance the marketing:
1. Promotion: Encourage familiarity with Chakhao outside of Manipur through targeted campaigns showcasing its nutritional and economic benefits. This can be achieved via media adverts, featuring as a special delicacy in restaurants, and through demonstrations.
2. Quality Standards: Implement strict quality parameters after harvesting, including sorting and grading grains. Improve product packaging for consumer convenience.
3. Marketing Linkages: Create a robust supply chain including farmers, traders, processors, and consumers. Partnerships with relevant associations and private sectors can help in distribution and premium pricing.
4. Infrastructure: Construct rice processing factories and improve transportation for easier distribution. Support millers with high-tech and efficient rice milling equipment and provide maintenance training.
5. Training: Provide comprehensive training on benefits of Chakhao, innovative rice production technologies, and post-production handling techniques. Encourage group plantations and train value addition actors.
6. Government Policies: Implement policies to reduce black rice importation, offer subsidies on farming necessities, and promote special incentives to expand in the export market. Provide assistance with loans, product certifications, and licences to rice processors. Establish seed production sites, support millers with appropriate packaging materials, and improve storage practices.
Challenges in Promoting and Marketing
1. Lack of Awareness: A major challenge is the lack of awareness about Chakhao outside of Manipur. The various health and nutritional benefits of this rice need to be projected to the larger consumer population. Overcoming this requires targeted promotional activities.
2. Quality Management: Ensuring and maintaining quality standards is another challenge. After harvest, the grain product must be sorted and graded according to quality standards. This process can be difficult and time-consuming.
3. Market Linkages: Establishment of a value chain is crucial - from the farmer to the processor to the consumer. Without clear linkages, the product may not reach the desired consumer base.
4. Infrastructure: Infrastructure, such as adequate processing facilities and effective transportation systems, is often insufficient, hindering the production and distribution processes.
5. Training: Farmers and processors may lack the required knowledge or skills to effectively grow, process, and market the product. Capacity-building efforts are therefore essential.
6. Competition: The market might be flooded with other black rice varieties, posing a threat of misbranding or admixture. This stresses the need for characterization and GI registration to distinguish Chakhao from other black rice.
7. Government Policies: Inadequate government policies to support local farmers and producers, like minimum support prices or subsidies, can limit the production and marketing of Chakhao.
Addressing these challenges necessitates integrated efforts from farmers, processors, marketers, government bodies, and other stakeholders.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Chakhao, the black aromatic rice from Manipur, presents vast potential in terms of its nutritional value, health benefits, and socioeconomic implications. Leveraging its GI registration, Chakhao's distinctive properties can be used for value-addition, waste utilization, and efficient marketing. However, for the full realization of its potential, strategic efforts such as comprehensive training, supportive government policies, maintaining quality standards, and infrastructural improvements are crucial. This underscores the need for increased research, improved value chain, and promotion to transform this traditional crop into a globally recognized superfood, benefiting producers, consumers, and society at large.
Dr Leishangthem Jeebit Singh, MPS Grade – II (P) and Former Agriculture Officer Dr Gayatri Khangjarakpam, Assistant Professor, College of Agriculture, CAU, Imphal
[email protected]