Organic farming in India: Progress, possibilities and constraints

Organic farming systems have attracted increasing attention world over due to wide adverse effects of conventional agricultural practices on human diet, environment and sustainability of agricultural production. India has the advantage in terms of rich genetic pool, availability of the technology to produce and process organic food, large domestic markets and cheap labour which would enhance cost competitiveness of the country. India should take the initiatives to become a major exporter of organic food products. However, the growth of organic farming has been very slow in India because the emphasis is given more to food security and safety. The major concern seems to be India's ability to meet the demand for food through organic agriculture. Many field crops seem to suffer a yield loss during the initial years. The premium prices will make organic food products unaffordable to the poorer sections of society. Increase in the area under organic agriculture is expected to reduce supply of food owing to yield loss, which would drive their prices upwards. Price increase may affect exports of these commodities. Furthermore, in the absence of a proper certification system, it may be difficult to ensure supply of genuine organic food products to consumer. These concerns are highly valid and therefore, complete transformation from conventional to organic agriculture is not advisable and also not feasible in the short-run. However, it is important to recognize the problems with conventional agriculture and explore alternatives before it is too late. Therefore, the policy thrust should be on encouraging organic farming. The development of organic farming suffers from the problems of supply and demand uncertainty, appropriate processing technology, and market development. Therefore, encouraging organic agriculture would require appropriate government policies to address some of these problems, especially during the initial stages.