Conference to promote organic farming today

| | Ranchi | in Ranchi

Centre of World Solidarity (CWS), along with Society for Promotion of Wastelands Development (SPWD) and Welthungerhilfe, is organizing a two day conference on April 25 – 26 at HRDC, Ranchi, on the issues of increasing use of pesticides in crops and the related health hazards. The consumption of pesticide in Jharkhand has risen six folds in the past six years and in 2017 at least six indebted farmers committed suicide, said the organisers. The conference will witness the presence of Minister of Food and Supply Dept, Saryu Roy and other eminent persons of the State.

This two day conference will be called ‘Towards Organic Jharkhand’ and will be held from 11 AM – 4PM. The main aim of the conference will be to urge the Government of Jharkhand to restrict the use of lesser harmful pesticide and ban the chemicals that are in the Class1 of the WHO list. The organizers will also appeal to the State to create awareness on the proper use of pesticides. The conference will be followed by a fair at the Gossenor College Grounds, where ecological products obtained from one hundred small holder farmers will be displayed from 4 – 8 PM on both the days. 

Joint director - ?CWS, Monimoy Sinha along with Programme Director at SPWD, Sharat Singh said, “In Jharkhand, we do not even have a proper agriculture policy, though Jharkhand had an organic mission operating in the State. The current restrictions from the FSSAI will create trouble for small and marginal farmers for accessing the market due to poor infrastructure facilities.”

Advocate Reena Gupta said, “The pesticide story in our country is quite scary. There are certain elements in pesticides which tend to make the farmers weak mentally, giving rise to depression. As a result, the depressed farmers commit suicide. We have one of the worst regulatory frameworks in the world. India allows sale of at least 66 chemicals that have been banned in most of the countries.”

Programme Manager - ?Welthungerhilfe, Anshuman Das said, “We should establish proper mechanisms for testing random food samples from ICDS, MDMS and regular markets by the food testing laboratories as contamination and adulteration has really been rampant.”