The experimental evidences on the effect of climate change on dairy animals are sufficient but primarily restricted to developed production system of plain land. Hence, this paper assessed the effect of climate change on dairy in the north eastern Himalayan states of India. A random sample of 240 farm households from Asom and Nagaland were interviewed and a case study was conducted in Mizoram. It was found that the livestock compositions have changed and the number of animal per household decreased during drought. The availability of fodder and pasture dwindled which increased the time spent on collection of fodder; and the milk yield of the dairy cows declined. Just & Pope stochastic production function revealed that the increase in maximum temperature is expected to increase the variability in milk yield in the north eastern hill states as the heat stress reduces the milk yield of dairy animals. Hence, location specific scientific housing and feed management may be adopted to reduce the negative effect of climate change on dairy animals.

The Northeast region (NER) of India comprises of 8 sister states namely Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Nagaland, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Manipur. The region has an agrarian economy composing of rich agricultural resources which needs strategic exploration for inclusive growth of the region. This can be achieved through the realization of the immense scope and potential for agribusiness in the region. The study aims to explore the agribusiness scenario in the region and to throw light on the constraints in the sector prevailing in the region. Several agribusiness ventures have also been discussed which have potential in the region’s unique business ecosystem. Finally several strategies were provided which may have policy implications on future entrepreneurial development strategies in the region. The descriptive policy paper was formulated based on data collected and experienced gained from over four years (2016-2020) of entrepreneurial development activities by the Agri Business Incubation Centre under Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Research Centre for North Eastern Hill region (ICAR RC for NEH) and its 5 regional centers across the NER. Further, references from other researchers have been included to substantiate the topics discussed here and improve validity of the observations. Agribusiness sector in the region may be promoted through intensified entrepreneurial initiatives by adequately exploiting the resource potential, particularly in agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry and fishery sector. This creation of market driven products to suffice the demands of growing middle-class consumers will lead to improve rural employment generation, augment farm income and raise revenue through intensified participation in export trade. However several infrastructural, technical and policy improvement have to be made in order to unlock the potential of these ventures. Only planned structural and strategic changes which include increased exports, impactful research and development, institutional support, etc., can be catalytic for entrepreneurial development in the region.

Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) serve as a frontline extension system and as knowledge resource centres of agricultural technologies for supporting farmers in improving their agricultural production and livelihood. They are vital in contributing to agricultural development in the county through technology assessment, refinement and diffusion. They also play a significant part in the development of the capacity of human resources in the grass root agricultural sector. Owing to the importance of these organisations, this study was conducted in five KVKs of Meghalaya to explore the work environment of the KVK workforce through studying the Organisational Climate (OC). Organisational Climate is the shared perception of the people working in the organisation about their organisation. It can be considered as the team spirit in any organisation and is important to the effectiveness of those organisations, be it big or small, private or public and profit or non-profit. The tool employed for the study was the Organisation Climate Questionnaire (OCQ) developed by Furham and Goodstein (1997). It was found that all the dimensions of organisational climate were having relatively high scores except in the case of Career Development, Teamwork and Support, Relationship and Reward System in some of the KVKs. These aspects of organisational climate had

The Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) are very important organisations for promoting agricultural development at the district level through the various trainings and other development programmes they offer. One way of knowing how effective these KVKs are in catalysing district agricultural development is to study the clienteles’ satisfaction of the farmers involved with those KVKs. In this study, 150 farmers across five districts of Meghalaya were interviewed to study the clienteles’ satisfaction, it was found that the client farmers of the KVKs were highly satisfied with the outputs and services of the KVKs since the overall clienteles’ satisfaction index was found to be 76.49. The farmers however did express a few problems such as non-timely delivery of relevant inputs/services, lack of innovative need based technologies and the lack of relevant market information. There should be more initiatives from the KVKs to provide regular market information to the farmers through the use of ICTs. Development programmes should be delivered timely so that farmers can plan their farming activities accordingly and more effort should be given by the KVKs to increase participation of farmers in programme planning and execution to help develop innovative need based solutions in accordance to the farmers’ problems.