K'taka to add 200 more villages for bio farming

Bangalore, Sept 5 (UNI) In its effort to promote organic farming across Karnataka, the State government today said it will adopt 200 more villages with a new focus to issue certificates to bio farms, to enable them compete globally by exporting their products.

The government's fresh initiative followed the success in its efforts to promote organic farming in a big way in the first phase.

Certificates would be issued to those farmers who adopt national standards in organic farming as organic farm produce sales was witnessing a 30 per cent increase every year with the current value estimated at 32 billion dollars, Chief Inspector R Kantharaj of the Association for Promotion of Organic Farming (APOF), the main agency in the state for issuing of the certificates told UNI.

He said the Gaziabad based-National Center of Organic Farming (NCOF) is assisting the organic farmers in maintaining the diaries on their daily activities in connection with the issuing of certificates to them.

He said that the farmers, who practice organic farming need to renew their certificates annually.

The new concept envisages that all the villages would have a compact or scattered 100 hectares of land marked for the development of organic farming, he said.

Organic farming is a form of agriculture which avoids or largely excludes the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides.

In India the National Programme on Organic Production has set the standards to regulate the productions by issuing the certificates to the farms in 2001.

In the first phase introduced three years ago by the state government had mainly created awareness in organic farming with providing training for farmers to prepare botanical products like neem-based products and panchgavya.

These products are used for spraying on the crops as bio-pesticides, he said adding that they had also developed new varieties of bio-fertilisers like Bijamruta and Jeevamruta to activate microbial activities in the soil.

"With this innovation by the farmers they need not depend on the outside markets to purchase bio-inputs," he said.

The Argriculture Research Station at Nagenahalli has taken up the study on the new products to find out the efficacy in the cultivation, he said.

The state government had taken the second phase this year with a stress on certification of farmers' lands following the success in its first phase introduced three years ago for the first time in the country for promoting organic farming in 28 villages. The government had launched this programme in 28 districts with a concept of promoting of 28 bio-villages with a 100 hectares of land each.

The farmers were trained to prepare their own products like vermi compost, composting, green manuring crops to replace chemical fertilisers for their cultivations in the first phase, he said.

Mr Kantaraj said APOF has also taken up the projects in 50 villages in Andhra Pradesh for promoting of organic cultivation.

UNI