Karsog Valley Farmers Group was invited to attend a one day workshop at Hotel Peterhof on 18th of August to chalk out an Organic Farming Policy for the state of Himachal Pradesh by the Department of Agriculture of the state. OFAI-KVFG was represented by Vikram Singh Rawat and Ashish Gupta . The agenda of the meeting was to bring all stakeholders of the state and carve out a suitable Organic Farming policy for the state. The basis for the discussion was a draft vision document titles “Organic Agriculture in Himachal Pradesh” prepared by Dr. Tej Pratap Ex-VC of Himachal Agricultural University.
The premise set was that Himachal government had increased investment in agriculture from Rs. 10-20Cr To Rs. 150-175Cr, in keeping with the requirement of Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna. In addition a recent visit by the CM of the state to the World Bank set forth a surprising requirement by the bank that if the state could come up with a workable Organic Farming policy by September 2011 to be eligible for a grant of Rs. 1000 Cr. A request from a body like World Bank towards Organic Farming was a surprise to the members of the state. The state on its part had been keen to promote Organic Farming and towards that end had issued soil health card free of cost to all farmers and were keen to have complete coverage by end of 1 year.
It was suggested that since a large part of Himachal is forest land the department should take steps to have tracts of meadows, pastures and forest certified so as to have a large part of the state as default organic already. That will leave the farm lands to be certified over a period of time. The agricultural department was open to the idea of having parts of the state declared organic such as Pangi Valley so that there is no need for any chemical agricultural inputs even be sent to that part of the state.
The day was closed by comments from the Chief Minister of the state Prof. P.K. Dhumal who said that apart from the World Bank grant the need of the hour was to get Organic Farming going and that he too was from a small holding farm family. All departmental support was promised by the CM and it was mentioned that a nodal body under his control shall ensure other departments align their policies so that Organic Farming is given priority of implementation. It was mentioned that a recent meeting with Ernst and Young a marketing opportunity existed to sell organic garlic and apple is large quantities and when good quality produce is available people will they come to purchase and the state will not have to create any demand for it.
KVFG-OFAI had a keen and meaningful discussion and many suggestions made by the members were incorporated in the draft. The key points which were strongly advocated by us were –
To remove premium pricing for organic produce. It was a basic premise that organic food gets a better price by virtue of its certification. This was removed from the original draft, it was explained that Organic food should get a premium, if at all, by virtue of its quality and not its certification.
While there was no need for a separate subsidy by the government. To have a level playing field as compared to chemical farming organic farmers should be provided incentives in terms of availability of seeds, inputs and infrastructure.
Good quality organic seeds and other inputs should be provided to Organic farmers through the government infrastructure. Research in fundamental areas of seed and soil should be done at public universities and knowledge bases should be created by the government in forms of call centres to the aid of farmers.
Water is an important resource for organic farming and policies should be devised keeping rain fed and irrigated farmer separate. Also it should be ensured that downstream organic farmers get quality water in case of irrigated lands so that their practices do not get polluted by upstream farming practices.
Marketing should be strengthened by the government such as infrastructure within the mandis to ensure separation of organic goods , organizing haats and making available space for retail available for sale of organic farming produce.
In addition to creating necessary branding for produce sold through Himachal Geographical Indicators can be created out of produce of certain regions e.g. Kinnauri Apple, Pangi Rajmash etc.
Making and incentivising producer companies for sale of organic produce and processing. This will help producers organize better and make marketing suitable directly by their companies.
PGS is ingrained as an acceptable legal certification requirement for organic food marketed within state and national level. It was argued that PGS be restricted to sale of produce within the state. However, we suggested that the restriction be removed since there was national as well as international demand for PGS certified food.
Organic Farming Centre for PGS for the Himachal State is in Haryana. It is suggested that all organic farming related departments be institutionalized so that a formal model for execution be developed.
Starting Diploma and certificate courses for Organic Farming in universities and institutions.
The points which could not be raised during conference.
There should be effective easily available organic substitute against All chemical farm inputs.
As suggested in the conference, Package and practice for organic farming will be devised by Agriculture University, but it is our belief that spray schedule for major cash crops should be circulated by the department as Organic Farming is based on the phrase “prevention is better than cure”. Generally farmers have tendency to cure the problem.
