Guwahati May 9:  Kiwi fruit is harvested in abundance in Ziro valley of Arunachal Pradesh but these fruits were only used for local consumption and only small quantities were exported to neighbouring Assam even after the formation of a cooperative society.

There are huge orchards of Kiwi in Arunachal Pradesh, which was not so lucrative a farming activity since it didn’t fetch sufficient income to the growers and farmers though the fruit is known to have health benefits.

In 2017 a woman agricultural engineer changed the outlook of kiwi farmers and made it a profitable produce by starting a kiwi winery and successfully running it. The kiwi winery entrepreneur and a mother of four received the 2020 Nari Shakti Puraskar from President Ram Nath Kovind on International Women’s Day 2022.

Tage Rita is an agricultural engineer and is India’s first kiwi wine brewer. In 2018, she was honoured with the Women Transforming India Awards, organized by the United Nations and NITI Aayog. This award-winning Arunachalese woman entrepreneur has been nominated for the prestigious 2022 Fortune–US Department of State Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership, which has been scheduled to take place from May 8 to 28 in Washington, D.C., the US capital. Rita reached Washington DC this afternoon. An Apatani tribal girl, she studied in her state and was trained as an agricultural engineer from NERIST (North Eastern Regional Institute of Science and Technology ), Nirjuli, Arunachal Pradesh and became an asset of the state solving local issues and then starting a global business.

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Tage, an agri-entrepreneur and the founder-director of NaaraAaba a Kiwi Winery in Arunachal Pradesh (the first winery in India to launch organic kiwi wine), will join 14 other emerging female leaders from around the world in a mentoring partnership. Fortune Most Powerful Women, the US Department of State, and Vital Voices Global Partnership have formed a public-private partnership called the Fortune–US Department of State Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership.

Congratulating Rita Tage, Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu in a social media post said, ‘Sweet success! Congrats Tage Rita, founder of NaaraAaba, on being nominated for US Dept of State Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership. Rita has done exemplary work of promoting wine made out of exotic fruits of Arunachal Pradesh and creating sustainable livelihood for locals.’

Talking about her business to the Echo of India over the phone after she landed in US, she said, ‘ In 2017, I invested in a boutique winery – NaaraAaba. In doing so, I also found the solution to a local problem. I would brew wine from Kiwi, a fruit that was found in abundance in the valley where we lived. I sourced the organic fruit from our orchard and the Kiwi Growers Cooperative Society in Arunachal Pradesh. The farming sector gained assured buyers.’ On her US mentorship program, she excitedly said that it will immensely benefit her to gain global knowledge.

On technology intervention and manpower she said, ‘We have the latest technology in terms of machine and skilled manpower. It took lots of self-research and planning to prepare the right procedure and the correct concoction.’ She further added, ‘I have just done the self-study that is socio-economic research on the possible positive impact of setting up a winery to consume the fruits of our region’.

Now the winery has scaled its capacity since 2017, from 20,000 litres to 60,000 litres of wine production currently through 16 tanks. The first year of wine production alone supported 300 farmers and brought them back to the kiwi orchards, as they sold around 20 metric tons (20,000kg) of kiwis to the winery.