In a bid to promote organic farming in the district, the horticulture department is trying to encourage more than 4,800 farmers belonging to 48 Farmers Producers Groups to take up organic farming and get their eco-friendly farming methods certified by the Tamil Nadu Organic Certification Department.
The district administration said that since 2018, the department was working with agriculturalists and farmers across the district to reduce and eventually eliminate the use of chemical insecticides, pesticides and fungicides in growing crops in the district. “We foresee an increase in demand for organic produce both from abroad and from other parts of the country in the coming years, and are trying to encourage more farmers to shift to organic farming practices,” a release said.
Each of the 48 Farmers Producers Groups have applied for certification to the Tamil Nadu Organic Certification Department. The farmers who comprise the groups are being given training about the methods they can employ to grow their crops organically and without the use of chemical pesticides, insecticides or fertilizers.
The release said that officials from the Tamil Nadu Organic Certification Department had recently visited the farms of agriculturalists who comprise four of the Farmers Producers Groups in the region, and said that other farms in Udhagamandalam, Kotagiri and Gudalur will also be inspected by the officials before granting them the certificates that attest to the farmers conforming to norms regulating organic farming practices. The farmers who pass the rigorous inspections would be given “Scope Certificates” for the first year.
Farmers in the district who wish to apply for the certification have been asked to approach the office of the deputy director of horticulture in Coonoor, Udhagamandalam, Kotagiri or Gudalur, with the cost of the applications ranging from ₹2,700 to ₹9,400, depending on whether the applicants were small farmers, farming collectives or major agricultural businesses.