Organic foodstuff, free of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, has found a ready clientele among well-heeled, health-conscious Indians in cities. But what makes a foodstuff organic, and what is its supply chain like?
As the car turns into the pleasant drive-in at the French Farm outside Gurgaon, you hear Roger Langbour, its owner — and yes, a Frenchman — shrieking: “Lobo, Down!” At the command, a Rottweiler leaps across a patch of red radish and chases away a mongoose. “He [Lobo, the dog] is going to kill it...else the mongoose will suck the blood of the other animals on the farm,” says Langbour. The driveway is lined with mulberry and papaya trees, with intermittent patches of strawberries, Langbour’s recent venture. “The demand for organic strawberries is huge,” he adds, enlarging his eyes for effect.
In casual attire, with a trendy hat on his head, Langbour doesn’t look like a farmer who spends his days in the fields. But his job is demanding. It’s noon now, and Langbour and his apprentice, Bishwa, have been up and about since 4 am. “November to March is the busy season for us,” he says, showing us his multiple plantations with childlike enthusiasm: watercress growing in between patches of spring onions, baby carrots and tapioca (sprouted from seeds brought in from Africa), spinach, pokchoi, Chinese cabbage, cauliflower, baby turnips and more. The fields are lined with separate pens for chicken, quails, ducks, pigs and turkey. Langbour pauses to beam at his lemon trees for which he bought seeds in Assam. “Look at their size...twice that of the lemons in the local market.”
Working at the French Embassy in Delhi in the 1970s, Langbour says he was “repulsed” by the quality of meat available in the markets in the city. “DDT was freely available,” he says, referring to the insecticide which, despite a worldwide ban, is still used in certain parts of India. So he went back to France to work on a farm, picking up the skills — such as how to castrate animals and rotate crops — that he needed to run his own farm one day. On his return to
India, Langbour, along with compatriot Francis Wacziarg of Neemrana Hotels, bought the farm he currently operates — he took three acres and Wacziarg kept the other 4.5 acres. Wacziarg, who hasn’t had a successful crop for a while, has for now put Langbour in charge of his land too.
* * *
More From This Section
Langbour’s French Farm is part of the nascent organic foods supply chain in the country. Organic food is food that claims to be free of synthetic fertilisers, insecticides, pesticides and artificial colours. Of course, it sells at a premium, but Indians, especially those who can afford it and are health conscious, are ready to pay for food that is pure and healthy. Langbour sells a suckling pig (4 to 7 kg) for Rs 19,000, spinach for Rs 60 a packet, and water cress for Rs 100 a packet. This is almost double what most green grocers charge in Delhi, but Langbour knows that demand for his products is robust. He has thus raised the price of his suckling pig by Rs 1,000 in the last six months.
According to Organic Monitor, a marketing and information services company that specialises in the international organic food industry, the total organic agricultural land in Asia is nearly 3.6 million hectares, out of which 1.2 million hectares is in India. Many small farmers don’t use synthetic fertilisers or pesticides; so their produce is fully organic, though they don’t know it and their produce seldom reaches the market in urban centres. So, the upside is huge. It is for this reason (along with the current sovereign debt crisis of course) that Langbour refuses to return to Europe, despite his wife’s wishes. “The market for organic food will prosper here in India,” he believes. Among his customers are embassies, expatriates, restaurants, hotels (Langbour is angry at some top-end hotels that order his produce but refuse to pay on time), textile revivalist Richard Holkar and Prannoy Roy of NDTV.
To grow organic food, a farmer needs to keep his farm free of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides for five years. So he mustn’t just stop using these (synthetic fertilisers need to be replaced with compost) but also ensure that this kind of stuff doesn’t seep into his fields from surrounding ones. The soil is then certified by a laboratory. Only then can he claim to grow and sell organic food.
A “certified organic” label is perhaps the only way for consumers to know that a processed product is organic — India Organic, for instance, is a logo granted for compliance with the National Standards for Organic Production. The Organic Farming Association of India (OFAI) offers its members a choice of two certification systems: a participatory guarantee system, wherein regular appraisals of the cultivated land are conducted by the organic farming community itself, and a third-party system for farmers living in remote areas where the appraisal is done by an organic farmer, a member of OFAI. Registered in 2006 with only a few hundred members, OFAI today has 3,500 members, among them all-organic farmers, green grocers and some NGOs.
* * *
Though he has been in the business of organic farming for nearly 20 years, Langbour’s farm is not certified. “If anyone wants to see the authenticity of my produce, they can come to the farm and test the products,” he claims adamantly. Taking credit for introducing the Peking duck to the Indian meat-eater, Langbour avoids using any synthetic additive. Instead, he tosses ash, onion and garlic across plantations, recycles manure and injects dried blood and broken egg shells into the soil to increase its fertility. The cemented boundary around his farm prevents chemicals from surrounding fields seeping in during the monsoon. Sourcing authentic organic seeds isn’t easy either. Since organic nurseries in and around Delhi are scarce and several “fakes” with organic labels are doing the rounds, Langbour imports seeds from Australia, France and England. He holds up a can of seeds he bought locally: not one sprouted.
Langbour does home delivery as well, but there are two non-negotiable conditions: One, he will not haggle with the customer. “I use five generators at a time to keep my quails warm...that requires investment,” he reasons. Two, and it is highlighted even on his website, customers should place the order themselves and not get their maids to do it. “It’s frustrating to take orders from the domestic help since they are always confused,” he adds, with a tinge of annoyance. A Maruti Suzuki Eeco travels to all corners of Delhi and its suburbs thrice a week, dropping off meat and vegetables to households that have placed orders two days in advance.
Langbour faces competition from stores like Le Marche, Cottage Emporium, Reliance Fresh, Fabindia and local green grocers. That’s perhaps why he has now partnered with distributor Ayesha Grewal, founder of The Altitude Store, a supplier of organic and natural products across Delhi and its suburbs. Grewal takes orders on phone, through email or directly at her stores. She must email the order to Langbour by 2 pm. Langbour spends his day assimilating the order, preparing the animals for slaughter, packaging the vegetables — while the poultry is packaged in ice boxes, the vegetables are wrapped in jute bags to retain the desired temperature. The following day, the Eeco leaves the farm at 6.30 am with the produce, which is offloaded at a warehouse in Basant Gaon in New Delhi. By 9 am, the collated orders are delivered to the customers. The home delivery is free for orders above Rs 750 in Delhi, Rs 1,200 in Gurgaon and Rs 1,250 in Noida. If customers are not at home to collect the delivery, the produce is stored at Grewal’s stores.
To prevent spoil, Grewal keeps a small inventory at her store as well as separate refrigerators for different poultry items. Though hotels and their erratic demands still give her “headaches”, Grewal and her team stay prepared for last-minute orders. “If it’s on the way, we don’t mind delivering impromptu orders,” she says.
That completes the chain.