India imports 4,000 tonnes of kiwi fruit from New Zealand, Italy and Chile annually, but farmers in the district of Arunachal Pradesh who have been growing kiwis for decades, are struggling to find buyers. They find themselves selling their produce at 70 percent of the prices commanded by multinationals.
According to the Nagaland Post, some local entrepreneurs have come together to launch the first organic kiwi wine, in an attempt to keep kiwi farming profitable and prevent farmers from going under.
The idea behind launching a winery is to encourage the farmers to continue farming kiwis. The Northeast is a treasure trove of products that really should be better known in the rest of the country. These include Meghalaya’s ginger, Lakadong turmeric and pineapple, Manipur’s black rice and passion fruit, and the badi elaichi from Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim.
