The organic advantage

Travels to the cradle of organic farming in India to unravel its prospects in the world market.

Kirsty Smallwood is in India on a mission for Duchy Originals, an agency that was started by the Prince of Wales to source the best organic produce from different countries, which it then outsources to various manufacturers.

All of it is processed under the Duchy label as chocolates, bakery and farm products, confectionery, bacon and the like. "It's a luxury label," says Smallwood, "that's widely distributed. You'd buy it, say, for something like a weekend treat."

But Smallwood's come up against obstacles in India. For a country with enough chutzpah to sell anything, anywhere, at any time, she's just not able to find anyone who will keep her supplied with organic produce from the country that "Prince Charles feels passionately about".

Famously, on his last visit to India, the Prince spent time at Dr Vandana Shiva's Navdanya store at Dilli Haat, but Smallwood wonders whether the NGO is equipped to keep it supplied with ginger, spices, mausambi and lime concentrates. "We're not looking for pulses or grains from India," she says.

If she were, chances are that Smallwood might have hit pay-dirt sooner. For one, there are still farmers "" particularly in the hills "" who use manure for fertilsation.

But these are small operations, and unlikely to go through the bother of certification. "EU regulations are fairly strict," Smallwood laments. So are Indian ones, but no one has organised the small farmers yet into a cooperative of organic farmers.

Yet up to 70 per cent of India's cultivated land can qualify for the organic stamp. Which is why the Morarka Rural Research Foundation has collaborated with the University of Udaipur to offer one-year PG diploma courses in organic agriculture management.

For Kamal M Morarka, Mumbai-based industrialist and former politician, and chairman of the M R Morarka GDC Rural Research Foundation, it was the need to regenerate farming practices in the arid land of his ancestors that led to his interest in vermiculture farming.

In Shekhawati, at the tip of Rajasthan, thanks to the organic farming practices being pursued by the farmers in the region, the once arid area is now fertile. "Our zameen (soil) is happy and hence productive," says a farmer.

Mukesh Gupta, executive director with the Foundation, beams optimistically at the prospect of ushering the nation into an "organic era".

(Smallwood, please note!) In an almost communist dismissal of GM farming techniques, he cites statistics to explain the "trend" that is fast becoming "the only alternative" owing to the damage done by such farming practices as using excessive fertilisers and pesticides popularised by the West in the last century.

Realising the "threat" of such farming as well as genetic modification, the Morarka Foundation started some 10 years ago armed with optimism but little by way of technical know-how.

It is only in the last four years that it has seen successful results. With more farmers ready to take risks coupled with its ingenious system of fertility management, it has now tapped a network of over 1 lakh Indian farmers using organic farming techniques like vermiculture compost, eco-sanitation etc.

It wasn't easy, at least in the beginning, to convince farmers to switch to such practices. Apart from breaking through their scepticism, it was difficult to convince consumers of the safety of organic products.

One can't help but draw a parallel between allopathic and alternative medicine practices, and the comparison of organic farming and other "popular" practices.

The eighties' obsession with ayurveda can be seen in the unbending optimism of the farmers and organic scientists at various farms in the Shekhawati region. But success for Gupta, who is based in Jaipur, lay in the experimentation lab that was launched by way of a

Rs 10 crore pilot agri-biotechnology park in Jaipur last year. Its goal: to offer employment prospects in organic farming related practices for 5,000 people, apart, of course, from generating income for farmers.

Certainly, the Foundation "" which last signed an agreement with the Himachal government to promote organic farming there "" has been able to network with enough states to create awareness as well as provide the basic thrust in vermicompost farming.

Uttaranchal Pradesh, in particular, has expressed the hope to leverage the USP of organic farming at an international level.

"The use of vermicompost has demonstratively resulted in improving the soil. I have no doubt that organic farming, if taken up extensively, will be beneficial to Indian agriculture in general as well as to the individual farmer since he would get better value for his produce," says Morarka.

"On the macro level, agriculture definitely holds the potential to be a sizeable contributor in the current Indian economy. I hope the government shares this view and rural India can become an integral part of the modern economic mainstream."

With laboratory as well as field experimentation happening at the same time and place, and advantages like zero capital investment, both farmers and scientists swear by the feasibility of the organic processes.

That it brings down the irrigation requirement of crops by almost 20 per cent is also helpful in pushing its cause in water-starved India.

Whether organic is the way of the future remains to be seen. But Kirsty Smallwood, who's disappointed that so little is available to her by way of organic supplies, should be able to report back to the Prince who "likes to buy from small farmers and producers" that a beginning has been made. "We'd like to get more of our produce from India," says Smallwood. Thanks to initiatives like Morarka's, maybe she will.