OFAI

KOCHI: From spinach to pumpkins and dragon fruit, a variety of vegetables were on display, lending a spread of lavish colours. It was a union of organic farmers, who had gathered together with a variety of produce. The occasion was the Karshika Mela and Malayora Krisha Sastra Congress for farmers held at Palode in the district, organised by Agri Friends in association with Rohini Samskarika Vedi.The organisation has been regularly conducting the Krishi Sasthra Congress for children and the event is being held for the farmers for the first time.

Actress and environmentalist Juhi Chawla has now been announced as the brand ambassador by the Government of India for a women empowerment project. The actress will be the face of Womens Organic Festival of India. Juhi who owns two farms on the outskirts of Mumbai, says she couldnt be happier to take on this new role.

Amit Hooda hopes to eliminate conflict with sustainable honey harvesting. He started Heavenly Organics, a company selling raw, organic honey with the goals of providing ethical jobs and fostering peace. The company supports almost 600 family farmers in conflict zones across India by selling what they describe as the cleanest sourced honey you can find.

Gram Art Project is sowing seeds of change for the women of four villages

On the border between Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh lies a little village called Paradsinga. Its a village with a difference, and has been the hub of culture and education in the area for the past three years or so. One of the young guns at the centre of this movement of sorts is 20-year-old Nutan Dwivedi, who visited Chennai over the weekend to spread her work further.

As a member of the Paradsinga-based Gram Art Project, Dwivedi spends her days trudging to nearby villages, offering alternative employment to the women there. There are a total of 50 women, whom I teach how to make seed bands, she says, on the sidelines of the reStore 10 – Safe Food Festival organised at Stella Maris College.

The seed bands are essentially wrist bands which have organic seeds embedded in them. They can pass off as both rakhis and friendship bands, and are a means to provide some semblance of economic independence for these women. They dont have the permission to leave their homes or travel, so I go to each household and teach them for free, says Dwivedi.

Raipur (Chhattisgarh) [India], Feb 18 : Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh on Saturday lauded the farmers of Naxal-hit Dantewada for bringing in a green revolution through organic farming.

“This is a peaceful answer to Naxalism that Green Revolution can bring in a positive change in society rather than violence,” said Raman Singh.

“The ‘Adim’ rice brand of Dantewada has now become famous all over the country. Its fame has reached Bengaluru and Chennai. It has not only become the identity of Dantewada but of the entire Bastar division. Farmers of Dantewada district have created a company named ‘Bhumgadi’ and linked it to the self-help group. So far, more than one and a half thousand farmers have joined the ‘Bhoomgadi’ company as a shareholder,” he added.

New Delhi, Feb 17 There is a need to conserve available genetic diversity of bananas varieties which are facing threat due to urbanisation and erosion of wild bananas in their natural habitat, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh said on Saturday.

Musa wild species and its allied species form an important source for resistant genes for biotic and abiotic stresses, he said in his address at the National Banana Festival held in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.

Raitha Belaku scheme seeks to provide Rs. 5,000 a hectare for growers of rainfed crops

The budget for agriculture runs contrary to the expectation that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah would come out with a series of sops for the farming sector with an eye on the forthcoming Assembly elections. Its focus is on dryland farming in the wake of the State accounting for the largest amount of drought-prone land in the country next to Rajasthan.

Much work has been done in organic farming in the last few years in Madhya Pradesh. According to Agriculture and Processed Food Product Export Development Authority (APEDA) currently, organic farming is being done in nearly 5.75 lakh hectare area.

More than 40 per cent organic agricultural products are being produced in the State which is about 40 per cent of the total organic agricultural produce of the country.Organic farming has been adopted in over 1800 villages of 313 blocks in the State.

The sky is blue, the sun is shining bright. One can hear the whisper of the cool wind blowing through the trees. Over a dozen SUVs are parked on the edge of a green agricultural field surrounded by the Aravalli hills in Gairatpur Bas, a bucolic village about half an hours drive from the glitz of the Millennium City.

Their owners– mostly professionals from Gurgaon– are toiling in the field they have taken on lease for community organic farming. Some are weeding, some sowing seeds, and others are plucking vegetables. I was buying organic vegetables from the market but was not quite sure how organic they actually were. So, I thought why not rent a farmland and grow my own vegetables, says Shikha Gaur, who runs an event management company. Helping her out in her 600-yard field is her 12-year-old daughter, Tvarita.

A festival that shows how eating safe will have a restorative effect on ones health

Restore is organising a Safe Food Festival on February 17 and 18 at Stella Maris College on Cathedral Road, Teynampet.

The festival commemorates the 10th anniversary of Restore, a not-for profit organisation, which works with marginal farmers to revive traditional and organic methods of farming.

Panel discussions and technical sessions with subject matter experts (SMEs) in the fields of environment and agriculture is an important aspect of this festival.

Parvathipuram (Vizianagaram): Tribals of Parvathipuram agency area were on cloud nine for getting good money for their produce.Organic farmers earning good income not only on fruits and vegetables but also commercial crops.

Generally, people are willing to pay more price to organic fruits, vegetables, leafy vegetables. Even the farm expenditure is also very less in organic natural farming as they use only cow dung, cow urine and some herbal extracts.

The government is also promoting natural farming in the state and imparting training to the farmers across the state. Some foreign agencies are coming forward to pay more to the commercial crop like cotton which is being grown in natural farming mode.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitleys last pre-poll Budget was one of the most keenly awaited events in recent times. Almost everyone on the streets expected huge sops, fiscal stimulus and even Income-Tax cuts, moves that were seen as big pull factors in an election year. The hopes of the middle class may have been dashed, with no cuts in I-T, but Jaitley has gone all out to empower the hinterland with a series of measures that will go a long way in improving the quality of life in rural India.
Mera Gaon, Mera Desh, in fact, seems to be the underlying theme of this years Union Budget. With his various measures, he seems to have taken a big leap forward in addressing issues of roti, kapda and kisaan. It is certainly good for the agriculture sector, particularly those at the bottom of the pyramid. The FM had the dual task of reflecting the governments intent of promoting rural growth with job creation and taking forward its various social measures and initiatives like Swachh Bharat, Digital India and Make in India.
The single biggest positive of this years Budget is its kisaan focus. With this Budget, the government has reiterated its promise of doubling the farmers income by 2022. Be it the 150 per cent increase in MSP for crops or the support to organic farming, doubling the expenditure allocation to Rs 1,400 crores for the food processing sector or liberalisation of agricultural exports, allocation of Rs 10,000 crore to fisheries, animal husbandries and related infrastructure or ensuring farmers better access to formal mandis, this Budget has ticked all the right boxes when it comes to improving the lives of people in our villages

Patna: The Bihar agriculture department is going to promote low-cost farming, which has been named “zero budget farming”, as part of its efforts to promote organic farming as well as reduce the input cost of farmers to increase their profit margin.

The new farming technique entails use of traditional inputs for getting better productivity from the field without hampering soil fertility that is a common result of using chemical fertilisers and pesticides.

New Delhi, Feb 15 Andaman and Nicobar Islands has huge potential to scale up organic farming, Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh said.

Currently, organic farming is being taken up on a small scale in about 321 hectares of the Union Territory.

“The island has immense potential and is favourably placed for organic farming due to less use of chemical fertilisers and abundant species,” Singh said in Port Blair.

The aim is to convert the UT into an organic farming island and therefore efforts are being made to create more awareness among farmers and consumers, he said in a statement.

Eleven out of 12 EU pesticide and GMO risk assessment methods studied were developed or promoted by industry, a new report from Pesticide Action Network[1] (PAN) shows. The report says that harmful effects observed in animal safety studies on pesticides can be swept under the carpet by using these methods. For example, tumours seen in test animals can be classified as irrelevant for humans; harmful pesticide residues in groundwater or 50% of non-target insects being killed off by pesticide spraying are deemed acceptable; safe levels can be assumed for carcinogens; standards for protection of aquatic life can be relaxed; and a GM crop that unexpectedly differs markedly in composition from the non-GM parent can be waved through the approvals process with little challenge.

ROME: Alternative methods of farming, such as organic farming, introduced by the Indian government in several states is the right strategy to tackle food insecurity, improving nutrition and alleviating poverty in the country, Gilbert F Houngbo, the president of the International Fund for Agricultural development (IFAD), said here on Tuesday while announcing a target contribution of USD 3.5 billion in loans and grants by IFAD for developing countries.
In December 2017, when I was in India I saw the plans laid out by the Indian ministry of agriculture for various agricultural schemes PM Narendra Modi has launched. I do believe organic farming is one of the right strategies that can be used to fight food insecurity, improve nutrition and alleviate poverty in India. In fact, the right approach to farming and non-farming activities could be the answer to economic migration, Houngbo told TOI on the sidelines of the forty-first session of the IFAD Governing Council.

It had taken them almost a decade to acquire swathes of land in a remote district in the southern state of Telangana aimed at creating their own forest. They began the process of buying land in 2006 from local people near Sangur reservoir in Medak district in northern Telangana where many families were migrating to urban areas because of lack of basic civic facilities like water and electricity.

But Supriya Gaddam and her husband, Anil Reddy, had to change their plan about their 96 acres of land when they met Narsanna Koppula, a pioneer of permaculture fondly called the Bill Mollison of India.

REASI: Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK), Reasi of Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology-Jammu (SKUAST-J) stressed on commercial organic farming and commercial floriculture in the national conference entitled as Innovative Technological Interventions for Doubling Farmers Income which was held at SKUAST-J from Feb 8-10, 2018 and was attended by many scientists from different states of the country.

Gajwel: Telangana government is setting up special purchasing centres for organic rice variety Telangana Sona in Siddipet market yards in order to encourage organic farming. Distrcit Agriculture Officer Shravan Kumar on Wednesday launched a special purchase counter for organic rice at Gajwel Agriculture Market Yard.

The official said with the special focus on planning of cultivating organic rice in 11 clusters in Siddipet district, Telangana Sona variety, which is also ideal for diabetics, was produced in about 50 acres this year.

The variety was produced using organic farming methods without any chemical pesticides and fertilisers. Farmers of Datharpally village of Gajwel mandal, who presented a bag of organic rice to Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao at his residence in Hyderabad on Wednesday, urged the government to increase the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for rice which is now Rs 4200 per quintal.

Since 1984, Dave Chapman has been growing organic tomatoes at his Vermont-based Long Wind Farm. Until recently, he was content to keep his nose to the grind stone. But then, a few years ago, he started to notice something different about the organic tomatoes at all the grocery stores he visited: They were almost all hydroponically grown, and almost all were coming from just a few large companies.

Surely, he thought, this must be an oversight, since hydroponics had been banned since 2010. He started petitioning, digging and talking to figure out what this was all about. The hornets nest that hes since dug up has become one of the most controversial issues in the organic industry. With deep integrity, Dave has been leading the charge to keep the soil in organic through rallies, presentations and public education.

Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao said the Telengana government will support to organic farming in a big way. He stressed the need for consumption of food grains produced through organic fertilizers. Rice and other food grains produced through organic fertilizers are good for health, he remarked.

A group of farmers from Datharpally village of Gajwel mandal met the minister and offered him the rice produced by using organic fertilizers. The minister said the State government would extend support to those farmers who were using organic fertilizers to their crops.

Patna: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) “sarsanghchalak” or chief Mohan Bhagwat presided over a meeting at Muzaffarpur with farmers selected from all 58 districts of Bihar and Jharkhand where he said that early strides in organic farming in India saved fertility of land. He discussed various other issues too.