Mizoram: How smuggling broke the back of Hachhek’s areca nut farmers

“I have been assigned to collect the Christmas offerings this year in our church in Kawrthah (a village in the Mamit district of Mizoram). In other years, by this time we would have completed the offering collection, but I have not started yet. It is a woeful position to be the collector of Christmas offerings this year,” says ZR Lalthlanmawia, one of the farmers who has suffered major losses due to the issues faced in the transportation of Mizoram’s areca nut produce to other states.