In their bid to successfully adopt organic farming in their respective regions, a group of farmers from the State will go on a study tour of Sikkim, which has been declared the country’s first organic State.
Farmers representing almost every district will be touring the hill State from November 5 to 10 to understand how its model can be replicated in Karnataka, which is also going organic in a moderate manner.
State Sugarcane Growers’ Association and Raitha Mitra Farmers Producers’ Company (a company set up and managed by farmers in Mysuru) have jointly organised the tour.
Association president Kurubur Shanthkumar, who is leading the farmers’ tour, told The Hindu over phone from Kolkata that the farmers actively involved with the association and the company had been inquisitive to see the best practices that gave the geologically small State a prominent distinction of being the first to go organic entirely.
He said Sikkim had successfully implemented the ways that are a key for expanding organic cultivation.
“Some of our farmers are already into organic farming. It’s cost effective and free from chemicals and pesticides. We wanted to go further and incorporate best practices to take organic farming to a different level,” Mr. Shanthkumar said.
As per the National Programme for Organic Production, over 75,000 hectares of farmland had gradually turned organic, giving the hill State the coveted distinction.
Mr. Shanthkumar said organic farming can be adopted for cultivating sugarcane, paddy, cotton, and other commercial crops.
“As the regular pattern of doing farming had turned expensive for farmers and the returns had also been not very attractive, many farmers wanted to take up organic farming on a large scale. Hence, we have set out on the tour of Sikkim,” he said. Cotton, jowar, ragi, pulses, cereals and tobacco were cultivated on rain-fed land, whereas paddy and sugarcane on irrigated land in Mysuru district, which had been making moderate progress to go organic.
There has been a decline in the use of fertilizers in the last few years.
The Agriculture Department has been educating farmers to cut down its use, highlighting their harmful impacts.
‘Savayava Bhagya’, a scheme promoting organic farming, is under way in the district where large tracts of land in one village of each hobli was identified for promoting organic farming. Farmers’ groups are formed and educated on producing vermicompost and green manure.
