An agriculture entrepreneur from Arunachal Pradesh has put his land where his mouth is — literally.
Likha Maaj, the man behind Green Gold Integrated Farm, has offered 10 acres of his land to the Arunachal Pradesh government, free of cost, to set up tissue culture-based plantations and push modern agricultural biotechnology into the hands of farmers who need it most. The offer came after his visit to AG Biotech Laboratories (I) Ltd., a facility specialising in plant tissue culture and agricultural biotechnology. And if the government takes him seriously, it could quietly be one of the more important agricultural moments this state has seen in a while.
What Is Tissue Culture and Why Should Farmers Care?
For those unfamiliar with the term, tissue culture is a technique that produces uniform, disease-free planting material in controlled lab conditions. The result? Healthier crops, better yields, and a fighting chance against plant diseases that wipe out harvests every season. Maaj argues this technology has genuine potential to lift productivity and, more importantly, lift farm incomes — two things that Arunachal Pradesh’s agriculture sector has been chasing for years. It’s not experimental science. It works. The question has always been access.
Stop Sending Officials Abroad — Send Farmers to Indian Labs Instead
Perhaps the sharpest part of Maaj’s pitch is what he said about exposure visits. He openly questioned the logic of spending heavily on sending government officials on foreign tours when world-class agricultural labs and biotech institutions are right here within the country. His suggestion is refreshingly direct — take farmers to Indian facilities, let them see tissue culture in action, give them practical knowledge they can actually bring home and use. It’s hard to argue with that. The gap between what’s available in Indian institutions and what reaches the farmer on the ground is enormous, and most of it comes down to who gets the invitations to learn.
The Offer on the Table
Maaj has formally appealed to the state government to review his proposal and take concrete steps toward establishing tissue culture activities on the land he’s offering. Green Gold Integrated Farm as a model suggests he’s not just talking — he’s been in the business long enough to understand what the ground reality looks like. The ball is now firmly in the government’s court.
Will the Government Act?
That’s the real question, isn’t it? Arunachal Pradesh has no shortage of good ideas that got buried in files. But an offer of 10 free acres and a clear blueprint for what to do with it doesn’t come around often. If the government moves on this, it could create a model that other northeastern states look at and copy. If it doesn’t, Maaj’s 10 acres will just sit there — and farmers will keep waiting for a change that never quite arrives.
