The Vegetable and Fruit Promotion Council Keralam’s (VFPCK) efforts to promote organic farming under the Participatory Guarantee System - India (PGS), a decentralised organic farming certification system of the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, has gathered momentum in the district with ten farmers’ local groups registered in just over a year.
Each group has only five to seven members since the focus is not on forming larger groups. Farmers engaged in organic farming are considered for membership.
The Participatory Guarantee System of certifying organic produce is expected to help scale up organic farming and provide reliability for produce being sold under the organic tag. The conventional system of certifying organic produce has been found to be too cumbersome and costly for farmers with small holdings.
“We ensure availability of inputs for farmer groups and better price for their produce by marketing them through outlets dealing exclusively in organic items and also through VFPCK outlets. The scheme is a continuing process and more farmers’ groups are likely to be formed in the district gradually,” said an official.
Certification
To receive certification under the scheme, farmers have to comply with a broad set of parameters and adopt organic farming methods. Though farmers included in local groups were already into organic farming they have to make some amends to ensure full compliance, the official said.
Around 100 acres in the district have received organic certification under PGS though it was ideal for each group to have around 25 acres for organic farming.
“The scheme is beneficial for farmers having own land whereas in Ernakulam about 90% of commercial vegetable farmers are lease land farmers. Finding farmers with own land is the biggest difficulty in promoting the scheme,” the official said.
The National Centre of Organic Farming remains the custodian of data, defines policies and guidelines, and undertakes surveillance through field monitoring and product testing for residues. Regional councils and facilitating agencies help the groups with capacity building, training, knowledge or technology dissemination and data uploading on the PGS website.
The sense of shared ownership through stakeholder engagement in the development and operation process and direct communication between producers and consumers and other stakeholders were the major highlights of PGS.
