OFAI

Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Radha Mohan Singh has said that Vaikunth Mehta National Institute of Cooperative Management (VAMNICOM) is playing a vital role in the development of Indian cooperatives.

Speaking on the occasion of the Foundation Day of VAMNICOM in Pune, today, he said that agriculture plays an important role in Indian economy.

In view of this, the Modi government is stressing upon and working tirelessly towards the vision of “Culture of Agriculture” with an aim to double farmers’ income by 2022

Sambhaji Neharkar’s world lies in his village in Beed district of Maharashtra. For the farmer, life revolves around his crops, which in turn depend on nature for the water they need to grow.

But nature is not always bountiful. And when nature fails, the results can be very harsh. Back in 2014-15, the Marathwada region of Maharashtra was so parched, it was a struggle to arrange even a few litres of water for day-to-day use – never mind the tens of thousands needed to irrigate crops.

India is the largest producer of limes and lemons in the world with an estimated production of three million tonnes per annum.

All through the year, markets in India are flush with the fruit. Primarily cultivated in states like Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Bihar, the ideal time to plant them is during the monsoon season.

In contrast to other cash crops that require high input costs, farmers going organic can earn high returns on the lemon, and here are three of them who are showing the way forward:

On a late winter morning, about 300 women farmers gathered at an agricultural field at Arjun Naik Thanda, a lambada hamlet near here, to celebrate ‘old crops’ or millets. After a brief meeting, they joined a rally of ten bullock carts, decorated with traditional art.

With seed samples of over 20 varieties of millets in glass showcases displayed on either side of each cart, the convoy starts on a month-long tour of villages.

“We don’t buy seeds. We don’t buy any inputs. We source all off them among ourselves. We save our seeds not only for the subsequent season but for a couple of more seasons,” said Anjamma, a 60-year-old millet farmer.

With three national awards to her credit, Anjamma belongs to the seed bank team of Deccan Development Society (DDS), which is promoting an ecosystem for millet farming in the area.

MANGALDAI: “We have taken the pledge to continue our mission to initiate multi-cropping farming instead of the traditional single cropping and to make our fields evergreen throughout the year by adopting the organic cultivation besides concentrating on fish and duck farming, horticulture, piggery etc,” a group of eight progressive farmers of the district has taken this pledge while offering their heartfelt farewell to the outgoing Deputy Commissioner Ashok Kumar Barman on the very first day of the ‘Bhogali Bihu’ on Tuesday at his official bungalow.

“The agro-horticulture farmers of Darrang district are highly grateful to Darrang Deputy Commissioner Ashok Kumar Barman as since his joining in the district two years back has constantly been encouraging and inspiring the educated unemployed youths of the district to take up the path of agriculture farming only to make them self sufficient.

It is only because of the constructive advice and suggestions of the Deputy Commissioner that a good number of unemployed youth of the district instead of running after grade IV jobs, have dedicated their life in agriculture farming that too in organic way,” said a group of eight upcoming progressive farmers of the district while talking to media persons.

The Union Ministry of Women and Child Development aims to encourage Indian women entrepreneurs and farmers to connect with more buyers through organizing ‘Women of India Organic Festivals’ across the country. This was stated by Maneka Sanjay Gandhi, Union Minister for Women and Child Development after visiting various stalls and Food Court on the concluding day of  6th ‘Women of India Organic Festival’  held at Leisure Valley, Sector-10, Chandigarh.

The Minister further said that through this festival, the Ministry also aims to educate people about its various initiatives and schemes relating to women and children development. The Women of India Organic Festival has been held annually in New Delhi since 2015 and has made its debut in Chandigarh this year to showcase the varied products of women farmers and entrepreneurs. She said that it would empower them through financial inclusion, while promoting organic farming in India.

Addressing the media, the WCD Minister stressed upon the need for promoting organic farming throughout the country for better, healthy and environment friendly lifestyle especially encouraging women farmers and entrepreneurs with a well-knit marketing infrastructure for organic farm products. She informed that the women entrepreneurs have got a very good response of the people during the festival. Visitors showed their keen interest to purchase various products exhibited in the festival.

PIPILI: After almost sixty years since the introduction of HYV seeds in various states of the country, Odisha has some catching up to do in terms of agricultural productivity. Prabodh Kumar Mohanty and Priyadarshan Routray from Pipili launched the I-Concept initiative in 2016 with a common mission to produce fresh and organic vegetable efficiently. The duo always believed in green revolution. After working for six months with the farmers, they realised that unless they demonstrate their ideas to the farmer, they won’t accept it.

Hence, it was decided that they will set up a demonstration field on organic farming in Kothabada, Dandamakundapur, Pipli, Puri. They named the demonstration unit as ‘Maa Mati’. Accordingly in November 2017, they first ventured into 2400 square feet land into organic farming by planting Brinjal, Chilly and leafy vegetables. In the initial stage, they were very curious to learn how the system worked and gradually learned more about it and started scaling up to other fields. They read articles and journals about the process of organic farming and its ingredients for manure and pesticides. Gradually the team started preparing organic manure and pesticides.

New Delhi: In a bid to maintain good health, Manisha Bhardwaj, a software professional working in Noida, and her banker husband, Sakal Bhardwaj—both turning 40—have decided to bring some changes in their lifestyle and food habits. The couple has not only joined a gym to lose weight but has also completely switched to organic foods—ranging from organic fruits, vegetables, pluses to organic rice.

“Earlier, I was buying vegetables from a local vendor. But now, I order vegetables and fruits from websites that sell organic stuff,” said Manisha Bhardwaj. “In grocery stores too, my first preference is organic foods now,” she added.

The three-day 6th ‘Women of India Organic Festival’ organised by The Ministry of Women and Child Development, Govt of India began today, at Leisure Valley, Sector-10, Chandigarh, to celebrate and promote women farmers and entrepreneurs in the organic sector from the remotest parts of India.

B.L. Sharma, Secretary, Women and Child Development, UT Chandigarh and  Anuradha Chagti,Joint Secretary, Ministry of Women and Child Development, Govt. of India inaugurated the 6th   edition of  “Women of India Organic Festival”. addressing the gathering after the inauguration Shri B.L Sharma stressed the need for adopting and strengthening the organic farming for healthy, wealthy and environment-friendly lifestyle through a well- knit suitable marketing infrastructure with the backing of government, public and private partnership promoting entrepreneurship among women.

Smt. Anuradha Chagti said that as many as 72 stalls of organic products are put up in the festival by women farmers and entrepreneurs besides 19 organic food stalls in the food court. She said that next such festival will be held at Hyderabad.

Panaji, Jan 10: Agriculture minister Vijai Sardesai addressing a state level seminar on ‘The Agriculture Sector in Goa: Towards self sufficiency and sustainable development’, said that farm produce ‘Brand Goa’ be on line with ‘Whole Foods’ USA as it would provide much needed impetus to the sector.

“The centre has sanctioned 500 organic farming clusters to the state.

Karnataka organic food product manufacturers see that if marketing via online platforms is introduced, it would give a big fillip to the sector. But certification and the dynamic regulation framework can further bring in the much-needed transparency to the e-commerce platform for trade.
The views have come in after the recent announcement by the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India’s (NAFED) step to spur the marketing of organic products online.
Currently, most organic food product manufacturers, including 24 Mantra Organic, Pro Nature Organics, Phalada Organics, Mrittika Agro from Dakshina Kannada, Satwik Organics from Gadag and the Bengaluru-based Pristine Organics, sell their products via their own websites.

Gangtok, Italy will be transformed into an “organic country” by adopting the farming policy of Sikkim, Chief Minister Pawan Chamling said quoting a communication received from Rome.

Speaking to media, Chamling read out a letter he received from the Italian government, citing the prestigious Future Policy Gold Award he had received at the United Nations FAO headquarters in Rome on October 15 last year for turning Sikkim into a “100% organic state”.

Lucknow: After making their presence felt in male-dominant jobs like police, army and games, women have now given their male counterparts a tough competition by taking up agriculture as their profession.

Women at the Dhanpatganj in Vikas Khand have skillfully mastered the art of developing ‘Vermicompost’ and are helping others in organic and disease-free farming.

They use natural composite in their farming instead of Chemical composite. One Gayatri from Bichchora village not only made herself financial empowered but also inspired several women coming from nearby villages including Samarthpur, Peepar, Korvam, Patna, Ramapur etc.

Dimapur, Jan. 8: A farmer from Nagaland, Lanuakum Imchen, proprietor of ‘Cold Mountain,’ was awarded the 2018 Best India Organic farmer award for North and North East India on Dec. 28 at Hotel Hyatt Regency, in New Delhi. The award was presented by Krishna Raj, Union minister of state for Agriculture and Farmers welfare.
Imchen received the Best India Organic Farmer award for being actively involved in organic farming and contributing to the organic movement in the state and country. He has been promoting organic farming for the past five years. The award was given by Jaivik India Award and International Competence Centre for Organic Agriculture.

Fancy organic food? Want them cheaper than market rates? The government will enter the online organic food market and sell a range of products, on sites such as Amazon and Grofers, through its main food-trading agency, the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (Nafed).

“We have just taken a decision last week after necessary processes. We are tying up with online platforms such as Amazon and Grofers,” Nafed managing director, Sanjeev Chadha, told HT.

Bengaluru: The Kumaraswamy government is mulling to introduce millets in the mid-day meals and Indira canteens in Karnataka in a bid to promote the crop.
Agriculture Minister Shivashankar Reddy said that the government has decided to speak to the multinational companies (MNCs) to include the same in their canteens.
“Rural areas consume millets and we need to push it among the urban population as well. We also want to increase its sale in urban areas. Hence, MNCs will also be requested to introduce millet meal once a day in their canteens,” Reddy said.

Over a 1,000 people, including tribal farmers and cancer patients, took part in a walkathon at Shivaji Park on Sunday, seeking a ban on use of harmful chemicals in farming. The focus of the walkathon, which also celebrated ‘Kisan Diwas’, was to create awareness about the benefits of organic farming.

Called HOSH, the event was an initiative of the AmbaGopal Foundation started by hotelier Harish Shetty, in association with Tata Memorial Hospital. The participants walked from Shivaji Park to the Siddhivinayak temple in Prabhadevi.

Member of Parliament Rahul Shewale, who was also present at the event, pledged to make Maharashtra an organic State. “The organisers have sent me a memorandum to come up with a policy to make our State completely organic by supporting organic farmers like in Sikkim. I will see to it that a Bill is passed in the winter session of Parliament, and make sure that we use organic methods of farming and declare Maharashtra as an organic State,” Mr. Shewale said.

It was 1993 when Krishna Mckenzie travelled all the way from the UK to Puducherry in India. Little did Mckenzie know then that years later, he would go on to become a champion of organic farming and an advocate of eco-friendliness in the quaint township of Auroville.

Inspired by the Indian culture from his alma mater, J Krishnamurti School in the UK, Mckenzie made his life-changing decision of stepping into India. Today, he finds happiness in farming with special emphasis on the Tamil cuisine and culture.

The 45-year-old is nothing short of a local celebrity. The Logical Indian spoke to Krishna Mckenzie about his love for natural farming which has been inspiring people to take the greener route. He said, “Man has lost their relationship with mother nature and hence, we have lost sight from where our food comes from.”

Solan: Chemical fertilisers are resulting in deadly diseases such as cancer. According to a research, the number of cancer patients in the last one-and-a-half year has increased by 25 per cent.

This was stated by Hichal Pradesh Governor Acharya Devvrat while addressing a farmers’ meet under the Prakritik Kheti, Khushhal Kisan scheme (formulated on Subhash Palekar model of natural farming) at Dr YS Parmar Horticulture and Forestry University, Nauni, here today.

More than 800 farmers from Solan, Shimla, Bilaspur, Sirmaur and Una districts and scientists participated in this programme.

Gunbir Singh has a mission – to coax farmers to go natural and enable ecological conservation and sustainable living. We are ingesting deadly toxins through food and water, he said. As president of the Dilbir Foundation, an NGO, he has been motivating farmers to grow pesticide-free food crops.

“Our objective is to support natural farming movement and organise outreach programmes to support farmers,” he said. The task is challenging and there are many problems that need to be addressed.

There is a degree of scepticism that has crept into the buyers’ psyche – the consumers are not sure whether the products sold as “organic” are actually pesticide free.

Organic farming is a system which avoids or largely excludes the use of synthetic inputs (such as fertilizers, pesticides, hormones, feed additives etc) and to the maximum extent feasible rely upon crop rotations, crop residues, animal manures, off-farm organic waste, mineral grade rock additives and biological system of nutrient mobilization and plant protection” (USDA).

FAO suggested that “Organic agriculture is a unique production management system which promotes and enhances agro-ecosystem health, including biodiversity, biological cycles and soil biological activity, and this is accomplished by using on-farm agronomic, biological and mechanical methods in exclusion of all synthetic off-farm inputs.

As one motored down the Mangamoor Road, farms in the traditional tobacco growing area in Prakasam district showed signs of severe moisture stress as the drought-prone area did not receive sufficient rain this year as well.

But the one farm that looked healthy was that of a progressive farmer, V.V. Prasad, who had taken to cow-based natural farming to protect soil health, cut costs on farm inputs and get highest rate for his produce.

So is the farm of P. Krishnaiah, who revived the traditional practice of preparing decoction from locally available leaves, that included neem and crown flower, for plant protection.

His farm also exhibited less moisture stress when compared to other farms grown by using synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.

Mixed farming has helped a progressive farmer at Athigere in Kottigehara village of Mudigere taluk to earn additional income and lead a content life.

A B Suresh Gowda cultivates ginger, coffee, cardamom, pepper, banana, pineapple, cucumber on his three-acre land in addition to apiculture.

He has been following an organic system of farming. He has cultivated coffee on his three-acre land and pepper vines are spread in the shade of trees in the estate.