Prakash Bio-Organics set to get Skal certification

City-based Prakash Bio-Organic Farm is slated to become the first firm in the state to get an international certification for producing organic food including grains, fruits, vegetables and fish as per international standards in general and European specifications in particular.

According to Chalasani Dutt, owner of Prakash Bio-Organic Farm, the Indian Tobacco Company (ITC) with an intention to export the firm's mangoes on a large scale, requested a Netherlands agency Skal International to certify the products of the farm.

"The certificate is a must for acceptance of farm exports by customers in Europe and the US. The experts of Skal International visited the farms of the firm at Nuziveed (100 acres) and Vattigudipadu (20 acres) on April 1 and studied in detail its agriculture practices," Dutt said.

Prakash Bio-Organic has already given its organic farming technology to the Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and Pacific (CIRDAS), an autonomous institution sponsored by the Asia Pacific nations and the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).

CIRDAS is employing the technology under a Japanese project for sustainable development of agriculture through organic farming with vermiculture practices in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan. The state horticulture department has certified that the agro firm strictly adheres to all practices of organic farming.

In the two plantations of the firm, 3,000 mango trees, 4,000 coconut trees, 3,500 guava trees, 600 sapota trees, 6,000 cocoa plants, 6,000 teak saplings, 450 arecanut plants, papaya and drumstick trees are grown.

Prakash Bio-Organic's 20-acre plantation produces 1,50,00 coconuts, which fetch Rs 3 lakh, and 100-200 tonne of guava, which bring an income of Rs 2.20 lakh. On other fruits and vegetables, the firm earns Rs 50,000. The company spends Rs 2.20 lakh, hence the net income is Rs 3.4 lakh. This puts the net income per acre at Rs 17,000. The income on this garden is expected to reach Rs 10 lakh once cocoa harvesting begins.

Chalasani Dutt, who also heads three other industries, said that since 1995 he had stopped using chemical fertilisers, fungicides and pesticides and following other popular forms of green revolution.

"We enhanced yields and quality of fruits and vegetables with reasonable investments only through organic farming. The organic produce remains fresh for longer duration and is many times more nutritive. Vermiculture (culture of earthworms), vermicompost, vermicastings (eggs and cocoons of earthworms), vermiwash (water passed through a colony of earthworms), and apiculture (honeybees) were the mainstay of the techniques,"he said.

Dutt said that if 25 per cent of Indian agriculture did not come under organic farming by 2007, the country would lose heavily in the world market. "It's inevitable. A look at the annual yields of our agriculture will prove this. Average annual per acre yields were as follows: 15.18 tonne during 900-1200 AD, 20 tonne in 1325, nine tonne in 1770 and 7.5 tonne in 1803. Green revolution began in 1950's. And the average yield had crashed to 5.5 tonne per hectare in 1993," he added.