Selling organic produce in India

Subject: Economy

Section: Agriculture

Key Points:

Organic farming is being practiced by about 3.7 million growers worldwide, with India accounting for 1.6 million.
The Agriculture Corridor under the Namami Gange project has covered 1.23 lakh hectares for organic farming.
Producers in India can register for organic certification in two ways — third-party certification and the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS).
In terms of market development, there is a dedicated ‘Jaivik Kheti’ portal with a registration of about 6.09 lakh farmers.
APEDA launched the TraceNetas an internet based electronic service offered by to the stakeholders for facilitating process certification for export of organic products.
In 2022, the US terminated India’s organic recognition agreement due to anti-dumping countermeasures for soyabeans.
How to push organic growth:
- Scale and quality are vital for commercialisation of organic produce. Contract farming, perhaps, can be a way towards this.
- In contrast to conventional farming, organic farming often yields less, but the price premium compensates for the deficit, ensuring its profitability. This makes certification and marketing important.

third-party certification and the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS).
In terms of market development, there is a dedicated ‘Jaivik Kheti’ portal
there is evidence of low awareness regarding traceability norms among growers registered in the TraceNet scheme of APEDA

National Programme for Organic Production

NPOP launched during 2001 was the first such quality assurance initiative by the Government of India under Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
The NPOP not only provided the institutional framework for accreditation of certification agencies and operationalization of certification programme through its accredited certification bodies but also ensures that the system effectively works and is monitored on regular basis.
During 2004 the NPOP was brought under the ambit of Foreign Trade Development and Regulation (FTDR) Act wherein it was mandated that no organic products can be exported unless they are certified under NPOP.

Participatory Guarantee System

To make the certification system affordable and accessible without the need for third party certification agencies a farmer group centric certification system was also launched by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare under PGS-India programme for local and domestic market.
Both the programmes (NPOP and PGS-India) are independent of each other and products certified under one system cannot be processed or labeled under another system.
While NPOP certified products can be traded in export and in the domestic market including imports, PGS-India certified products can be traded only in the domestic market.