A licence to go organic

As international standards are put in place for certifying organic products in India, both producers and consumers stand to benefit

Organic farming, both for domestic consumption and export, is set to get a boost with a new certification apparatus being put in place this year to make it easier and cheaper.

The current certification process is a time-consuming and expensive affair because farmers have to go to a foreign agency, especially if they want to export their organic products. But that is set to change soon with the Agricultural and Processed Foods Exports Development Authority (APEDA) having worked out reciprocal agreements with nodal certification bodies both in the US and European Union. “We negotiated with them for an assessment of our agencies and systems. They audited our processes and gave accreditation to our bodies,” APEDA director Sanjay Dave told DNA.

This will allow APEDA to give accreditation to any agency which meets the global standards. APEDA is training 14 organisations for accreditation as certification agencies, with the assistance of trainers from Sweden and Japan. “Our final aim is to have one agency per state. The logistical costs would come down automatically and the supervision too would be better,” said Dave.

Bijumon Kurian, president of the Manarcadu Social Service Society, a Bangalore-based organic products export agency, feels communication will also improve. “At present in some states there are inspectors who are not able to communicate with farmers in the local language,” says Kurian.

Rajashekar Reddy Seelam, MD of Sresta Natural Bio Products, welcomes the new certification process. “tepad. The buying countries also would therefore repose more faith and the bias which they have against our certification agencies would vanish over a period of time.” 

APEDA also has plans for group certification which will bring down costs further and also save time. For example, if a group of 100 farmers jointly apply for certification of their land as organic, the cost per farmer will come down to Rs3000 from
Rs1.5 lakh, says Dave.

Darban Singh, an organic farmer from Uttaranchal, only hopes the new plans will not remain on paper. “Most of the promises made by them are never implemented,” he complains. But Dave says APEDA has already sent a proposal to the government to notify the new global standards and agencies for organic certification, and this is expected soon. It will give a fillip to both exporters and domestic suppliers of organic products, he adds.

Domestic consumers too stand to benefit, as the credibility of Indian organic products improves and they become more easily available. A recent Nielsen survey found that more than half the respondents in India said they did not buy organic products because of their unavailability. As a result, “though Indians are getting more and more conscious about health, organic products are yet to make a mark in the average Indian household,” says Sonia Pall, executive director, Nielsen.

Another reason is that organic foods cost more than they should, says Jaswant Purohit of the retail outlet Fabindia. He blames the unorganised nature of organic farming in India. “Farmers are in transition to organic farming,” he says.

The transition period is also the main deterrent for farmers in going organic. It takes a year or two of cultivating specified crops to suck out the residual chemicals left over from previous crops before a farm can be certified to be organic. Agronomist CB Gaikwad suggests APEDA should adopt an integrated approach, giving farmers the option of dual farming, so that the initial burden of organic farming does not deter them.

That is the approach taken by Navdanya, an NGO supporting organic farming, in Uttaranchal. “We encouraged farmers to use native seeds and allowed them to do mixed farming, so that in the conversion period they do not suffer any loss. We also helped them find buyers and created a market for them,” said Navdanya’s director, Vandana Shiva.

Shiva says domestic consumers of organic foods would not have to pay so much if the government were to support their production and distribution. “Currently, a very small portion of the total produce is left for the local market, while the rest of is exported. Then the margins will be high.”

s_gautam@dnaindia.net