Lt Gov expresses concern over scarcity of agricultural land in Andaman

Port Blair, Jul 1 (PTI) Andaman and Nicobar Lieutenant Governor Admiral DK Joshi (Retired) on Tuesday expressed concern over the scarcity of land, which is impacting core sectors like agriculture, dairy and animal husbandry in the archipelago.

Speaking at the National Conference on International Year of Cooperatives-2025 in New Delhi, presided over by the Minister of Cooperation, Amit Shah, he highlighted the indiscriminate conversion of agricultural land in the archipelago to commercial land, resulting in a decrease of 40 per cent of agricultural land.

“The land conversion is adversely impacting agriculture, agro products, dairy, poultry and animal husbandry sectors that are core segments for cooperatives,” he said.

Joshi said that currently, only 2.5 per cent of the land area is left as agricultural land in Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

While commending Tribal Development Cooperative Society (TDCS) in ANI, he said, “It gives me immense pleasure to share a success story of TDCS in Nicobar Islands wherein Virgin Coconut Oil produced by the Nicobarese community was recently granted a Geographical Indication (GI) tagging.” Apart from the oil, six other products got the GI tag in the archipelago and "this is the perfect example of an economic empowerment of people through Cooperation”, the Lieutenant Governor said.

He also thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for including this accomplishment (GI tagging of Virgin Coconut Oil) in his talk show ‘Mann Ki Baat’. PTI SN NN