Abstract:

North East India comprising of eight states is rich in diversity of many fruits, vegetables, flowers particularly orchids, spices and medicinal plants (Deka et al., 2012).It is evident from the list of registered GIs, how other states have quickly grabbed the opportunity and secured GI tagging of their goods and produce peculiar to their region. However, Northeast India, inspite of its rich horticultural diversity have not been able to take advantage of GI tagging. The horticultural produce of Northeast India got leg up with as many as 12 products accorded GI tags. GI tags will pave the way for better branding and marketing of these horticultural products both in domestic and international Market, besides protecting local crops and facilitating better return to legitimate rural producers. Thus, it is pertinent that a streamlined strategy should be adopted for tapping the untapped potential of the registered GI products, because unless that is done, the previous, ongoing as well as future registrations will have no sustainability (Sharma and Rajan, 2018).