Kerala will be adequately represented at the forthcoming Organic World Congress (OWC), Minister for Agriculture V.S. Sunil Kumar has said.
Addressing a meeting of stakeholders at Kerala Agricultural University (KAU), Vellanikara, the Minister said the State’s progress in organic farming and the commitment to the cause had to be highlighted at the event.
The Minister stressed the need to prevent private parties from securing patent for indigenous crop varieties of Kerala.
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The 19th edition of the Organic World Congress will be held in New Delhi from November 9 to 11. The OWC, the world’s largest such gathering, is held once in three years to discuss and deliberate the issues of the day. The 19th OWC is structured on four conference tracks - main track, farmers’ track, scientific track, and marketing track.
The main track, comprising two parallel sessions, is a series of public discussions and debates by leaders from the organic movement on the best way to promote and implement the organic agenda. The overarching theme is “Global adoption of organic principles for truly sustainable agriculture”.
The farmers’ track provides a forum to highlight farmers’ work in organic cultivation, especially with regards to innovations in their farms. Presentations will be on the topics of seeds & biodiversity, soil fertility & health, soil life & plant health, and ecological farming practices & systems.
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While the scientific track is a platform where research results are presented and discussed in 20 sessions, the marketing track discusses innovative ideas for shortening value chains for promising marketing methods and for organic and fair trade alliance building.
KAU Vice Chancellor P. Rajendran, Director of Agriculture Biju Prabhakar, and OWC coordinator Claude Alvares spoke. KAU officials and scientists, farmers, and officers of the Agriculture Department participated. An action plan to ensure proper representation of the State in the OWC was drawn up at the meeting.