External agencies to help Dantewada become ‘fully organic district'

In order to achieve an ambitious target of converting Dantewada into a complete organic district in coming years, engagement of external agencies is being sought to achieve results in a limited time period, officials informed.

The Agriculture Department in Dantewada is promoting Organic farming and Sustainable Agriculture based livelihood among the farmers of Dantewada since 2013-14.

Dantewada is among the districts in Chhattisgarh which are very remote and affected severely by Left Wing Extremist (LWE) activities. Forest Produce and Agriculture are two most important sources of livelihood for the communities in the district. However, the forest based livelihood is limited and gradually weakening due to increasing population and various other changes.

On the other hand the low productivity of agriculture is also proving to be insufficient for the growing needs of the people. However, the district also has its strengths in terms of very low usage of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and a rich diversity of traditional varieties of Rice and millets, officials informed.

Leveraging these strengths, Dantewada has been promoting Organic farming and Sustainable Agriculture based livelihood among the farmers of Dantewada since 2013-14. More than 3000 farmers have joined these efforts and are cultivating paddy, millets, vegetables and other crops organically.

Looking at these efforts the Government of Chhattisgarh has aimed to make Dantewada into a complete organic district in coming five years. In order to achieve such an ambitious target, significant efforts will have to be put up and involvement of external expert agencies will have to be sought to share the responsibilities and achieve results in a limited time period.

These efforts would be focussed on building the capacity of Farmer and Women groups in the field of organic farming, their registration under PGS organic certification and bringing them under the membership of an organic farmer’s producer organization, 'Bhoomgaadi' which has already been formed in the district with the support of administration.

There would be efforts made for building a cadre of community resource persons (CRPs) in the area of intervention by training them intensively in the field of organic farming and certification.

Training of farmer’s groups and Women SHGs in the field of organic farming, cultivation by system of root intensification of rice, millets and pulses and organic cultivation of vegetables will be taken up.

Besides,  continuous hand holding support to the famers in organic farming, cultivation of Rice, millets, pulses and vegetables through the cadre of CRPs will be ensured, officials said.

Establishment of community seed banks to conserve and propagate traditional seeds and varieties in the cluster villages for which the district administration will provide infrastructure support as per the requirement will be taken up.

Registration of women SHGs and farmer’s groups for PGS organic certification and maintaining the documentation for the same will also be taken up , officials informed.

Deploying and operating a mobile ICT based MIS platform for data collection and maintenance of records such as basic profile of farmers (required for registration to PGS and 3rd party organic Certification), crop cultivation (at least one major Kharif crop), geo-tagging of at least one field of a farmer, photographs of trainings conducted and parameters to help calculate the income levels of the farmers will be done, they informed.

Notably, the Chhattisgarh government was mulling over plans to develop an ‘Organic Supermarket’ in Bastar region of Chhattisgarh in 2016-17.

The Government has already launched schemes to develop Dantewada, Bijapur, Sukma and Gariaband as ‘complete organic farming districts’.

This apart, one development block from each of the other districts will be included under ‘Organic Farming Mission Scheme’.