Born in Ziro Valley, one of the most beautiful places in Arunachal Pradesh, Tage Rita Takhe wrote her story from being a simple Agricultural Engineer to India’s First Organic Kiwi winemaker. She gained education as an agricultural engineer and got trained from North Eastern Regional Institute of Science and Technology ( NERIST ), Nirjuli in Arunachal Pradesh. Rita was honored by the UN (United Nations) and NITI Aayog with the Women Transforming India Awards.
What is ‘Naara Aaba Wine’?
Rita Takhe invested in Naara Aaba, in 2017. Kiwi is a fruit that is found in a large quantity in the valley where she lived. Rita used the fruit from her orchard and Kiwi Growers Cooperative Society, Arunachal Pradesh. The farming sector there received great profits from this because now they had assured customers. Making process of this wine is very unique as it follows traditional ways.
Winery of Naara Aaba is situated in Hong Village, Ziro Valley. Naara Aaba is a range of amazing kiwi wines which is now available in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and Meghalaya. It has a plant capacity of around 40,000 liters/ batch. The whole process takes about 4 months from the raw material to bottling. The wine’s taste is enhanced around 6-8 degrees Celsius.
This wine is made of organic fruit and sells for Rs. 1,200. Rita took years of planning and research to carefully form the right technique.
Recently, Naara Aaba extends its range of wines by Pear and Peach Wines. This range also expands the preservation of many exotic fruits harvested in the region during encouraging replantation of Salyo trees too. Saylo trees are used in the making of Pear Wine.
Journey Of Naara Aaba
Tage Rita wanted to revive the local farming community by sourcing its harvest by making wines from them and also preserving the healthy values of the exotic fruits. That’s how Naara Aaba was launched -India’s first-ever organic kiwi wine and she became an entrepreneur.
Rita Takhe is a farmer’s daughter related to the Apatani community. Apatani community is known for its sustainable social forestry system.
While Rita worked as an agriculture engineer at the Rural Works Department, she went out to realize her potential. In 2015, the State Wine Policy was introduced offering support to local entrepreneurs who wanted to enter into winemaking.
The name is a tribute to Tage Rita’s late father-in-law, who was known as Naara Aaba.
It all started in 2017 when the idea of preserving organic-harvested kiwis in the region was practiced in the form of wine-making. Arunachal Pradesh has a healthy environment where many exotic fruits like kiwis, peaches, pears & plums are available in abundance. In early times such harvested exotic fruits were decayed in waste because those fruits were not marketed enough.
“Takhe Tamo, my husband, actually wanted to start a winery. He loves wine. He would educate me too on wines. I was a bit apprehensive as I knew the process would be difficult,” says, 40-year-old, Rita Takhe.
According to her, working in a government job was easy and gave her job security. She knew turning into an entrepreneur would be a risky and hardworking task. In addition, at that time they did not have many resources and has 4 kids to take care of.
The Nari Shakti Puruskar
The Nari Shakti Puraskar is an initiative of the Ministry of Women and Child Development to honour the unique contribution made by people and organizations and to celebrate women as an inspiration of new and positive changes in our society.
President of India, Ram Nath Kovind, honoured wonderful individuals with the Nari Shakti Puraskars for 2020 and 2021 on the eve of International Women’s Day for their Incredible steps regarding women empowerment, especially the ones who have been in a bad state but still managed to work hard for a change.
Overcoming The Hurdles
Rita Takhe says that the alcohol market is mostly run by syndicates who are in contact with influential people of society. In the past 4 years, the Naara Aaba brand has been boycotted in the state. Only 2 out of 25-30 distributors promoted her wine.
Few locals support Rita and she has a lot of regular and loyal customers. The Indian Army, Air Force, and CRPF jawans often visit the winery. Domestic and foreign tourists can also be seen visiting often. “Their demand is what keeps me going,” she says.
Arunachal Pradesh doesn’t have a cold storage facility. In order to help, APEDA wants to give infrastructural support to build cold storage and provide refrigerator vans.
They also connected them to customers and helped with other promotional activities.
The Agricultural Produce Export Development Authority (APEDA), the Ministry of Trade and Industry gave her the exporter license.
Doing the good
Rita has helped local school or college dropout boys and girls with employment. They learned how to handle the machines and make the wine. Nearly,25 people are employed regularly and the numbers get increased during the time of fruit ripening.
For the purpose of cleaning, sorting, and grading till processing, people from the neighborhood, including the elderly are employed. This remarkable contribution to society was awarded by ‘Women Transforming India Award’ by Niti Aayog collaborated with the United Nations in 2018.
The former Governor congratulated her with a citation in 2018. The Department of Women and Child Development presented Rita with a Certificate of Appreciation in 2020.
“It’s not simply making wine; it’s me inside. I am representing my state Arunachal Pradesh,” Takhe says.
We wish Rita gets more success and recognization for the work done by her, and Naara Aaba grows in the field of winery among the world.
To know more about Naara Aaba, check – Website, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.
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