Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (MoA&FW) has certified around 14, 491 Hectares of land in Car Nicobar and nancowry group of Islands in UT of A&N as ‘Organic Area’ under the ‘Large Area Certification (LAC)’ scheme of the PGS-India (Participatory Guarantee System) certification programme.
- It became the 1st large contiguous territory to be conferred with organic certification.
- LAC is a certification programme under the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare’s (DAC&FW) flagship scheme ‘Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY)’.
- The organic certification will help farmers in getting direct access to the emerging organic food market of the country.
Large Area Certification (LAC)
- DAC&FW identifies potential organic areas and transforms them into certified organic areas, additionally it helps them to market their products through branding and labelling.
- Based on standards of organic production systems, areas with chemical input usage history have to undergo a transition period of 2-3 years to get qualified as organic. DAC&FW has removed the transition period under LAC.
- Under LAC, each village in the area is considered as one cluster/group, they will be certified in-mass as organic after undergoing standard procedures.
- DAC&FW has identified potential organic areas in States like Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, North Eastern states, Tribal belts of Jharkhand & Chhattisgarh, desert districts of Rajasthan.
Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY)
Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has been promoting organic/natural farming through various schemes of Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY).
- PKVY launched in 2015 is a component of Soil Health Management (SHM) under the Central Sponsored Scheme (CSS) – National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA).
- Funding Pattern – 60:40 by Central & State Governments, 90:10 in case of NE & Himalayan states, 100% Assistance for UTs.
Organic Farming in India
At present, India has more than 30 Lakh Hectare area registered under organic certification,
- India ranks 1st in number of organic farmers and 9th in terms of area under organic farming (topped by Australia).
- In 2020, Sikkim became the 1st State in the World to become fully organic.
For Isolated Individual Farmers:
To the certified organic fold, the ministry has also launched an organic certification support scheme under PKVY (Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana). Under the scheme, individual farmers can avail financial assistance for certification under any of the prevailing certification systems of NPOP (National programme for organic production) or PGS-India.
Facts:
As per the international survey report (2021) India ranks at 5th place in terms of area and is at the top in terms of total number of producers (base year 2019).
Recent Related News:
i.December 11, 2020, Lakshadweep became India’s first 100% organic UT in the country, and 2nd in India after Sikkim. This comes after the UT received proper certifications and declarations under the Centre’s Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (organic farming improvement programme).
About Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (MoA&FW)
Union Minister – Narendra Singh Tomar (Morena, Madhya Pradesh)
Minister of State – Parshottam Rupala (Rajya Sabha, Gujarat), Kailash Choudhary (Lok Sabha – Barmer, Rajasthan)
