Development of the Rubber Sector in North East India: A Case of Missing Innovation and Linkages

The development of the rubber sector in North East (NE) India in recent decades is an outcome of the government’s import substitution initiatives in the post-independence period. The article attempts to trace the process of evolution and development of the rubber sector in the region and observes that the adopted policies for rubber expansion had been framed under the narrow innovation system model, whereby the localised knowledge and learning, as well as practices, remained completely ignored in the promotion of the sector. The lack of region-specific rubber development strategies with appropriate linkages supported by institutional systems are the critical gaps that undermine the sustainable growth of the rubber sector in the NE region. Eventualities of the sort call for reinventing policies and programmes under the broad innovation system framework, so as to reap the advantages emanating from the integration of the region with the global market and facilitate greater diversification and sustainable growth of the rubber sector.