On her 60-acre farm off Kanakpura Road, around 30 kilometres outside Bengaluru, Sunita Prabhakar, director of Gopalan Organics, is overseeing the packaging of vegetables before they are sent off to stores in the city before noon. "We are not able to keep up with the demand," says Prabhakar, who began by exporting dry herbs in 2004 and added vegetables for the domestic market in 2009, a category they are looking to ramp up 10-fold next year. At present, domestic sales make up 40% of the Rs 80 lakh monthly revenue. The vegetables are sold in plastic bags with the logo of Gopalan Organics through stores in her family's real estate firm, Gopalan Enterprises, and also online grocery stores like Big Basket.
"Our farm is certified organic by Lacon — the German agency that certifies organic production of agricultural products — which is a must since we export most of our produce. They do inspections every three months, including random checks.And the entire farm is certified, not just what is meant for export," explains Prabhakar, when asked how customers are assured that the produce is organic.
Though individual packets do not carry certification labels, the certificates are displayed in stores and on the website, she says, adding that to export organic items, international norms are stringent and violations can invite penalties, including a ban for six years.
The produce of Gopalan Organics, being primarily driven by the export market, might be certified organic to meet international standards. But in India the term organic is yet to be defined by law, despite growing interest in the segment."In Europe and the US, the word organic is protected by law but here anybody can use that term. Nobody can be punished for violations," says Narayana Upadhyaya, managing director of Aditi, one of the 24 organic certification bodies accredited by Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), which are authorised to certify farms according to the government's National Programme for Organic Production of 2001.
The Norms Now
"When you say something is organic, there has to be a guarantee. It can't be the producer alone claiming it is organic," says Manoj Menon, executive director of International Competence Centre for Organic Agriculture (ICCOA), set up in 2004 to promote organic farming. While thirdparty certification by APEDA-accredited agencies is mandatory for exports, still the target market for the bulk of India's organic produce, certification for the domestic market has been voluntary, in a sense.
There are discussions for Agmark and the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) to step in and oversee the domestic organic market but any legislation is yet to be passed, says Menon. According to ICCOA data, the domestic market for organic produce has gone up to Rs 600 crore in 2014, from nearly zero ten years ago.
The other option for domestic farmers is to become part of a participatory guarantee system (PGS). Here, an audit of the farm is done by a peer group of farmers overseen by a regional council, but the standards will be those laid down in the government's National Programme for Organic Production.
Menon describes this as a less bureaucratic way of certification that is internationally accepted. "One has to realise that not all organic produce is meant for export, so why should we adhere to international rules," he asks.
Small farmers prefer PGS also because it works out a little more economical. "Certification is too expensive at Rs 30,000 a year. And those who are part of the ecosystem know even certification is no guarantee that it is 100% organic," says Meera Rajesh, who quit her career in the IT industry in Bengaluru and took up organic farming with her husband.
The couple now grow coffee and some other crops on an 8-acre farm certified through the PGS. Laxminarayan, another software engineer who has taken up organic farming, says he and his friends have also given up the idea of pursuing thirdparty certification.
"How do you know what is certified is organic? There have been incidents where something that was labelled as organic was not," says Laxminarayan, who grows ragi and other crops on an 18-acre plot of land he owns with ten friends. Legislation alone might not be the answer, he says. "It would need to be backed by constant monitoring and testing, which is where a regulatory authority needs to step in."
The lack of legally enforceable standards for organic food also affects those who market produce from certified organic farms. "We feel we are being discriminated against," says CMN Shastry, chairman and managing director of Phalada Agro Research Foundation, at his office off Magadi road, some 25 kilometres away from Bengaluru. As the head of a Rs 32-crore organic food concern which exports most of its produce, Shastry does not fit into the stereotype of a victim. But his grievance may be genuine enough.
Phalada gets its over 150 organic products from 1,400 farms across the country and sells it under the "Pure and Sure" label certified by the Indian arms of certifying bodies such as Germany's Lacon and Dutch agency Control Union, so that it meets the criteria set by the export market, from which the company gets 90% of its revenue.
"Without domestic regulation, there is no way to distinguish between a genuine player and someone who is not," he says.
The implication: his certified organic produce, which sells at a premium partly because of the high cost of certification, ends up competing with products that carry the organic label, but which may not be certified. With Phalada's revenue share from the domestic market expected to go up to 25% this year, Shastry is concerned.
One of the most vocal proponents for domestic certification of organic food is Crop Care Federation of India, an association representing pesticide manufacturers and formulators, which has sent a legal notice to FSSAI and the joint secretary in the ministry of agriculture.
The federation alleges that there were "flagrant labelling violations" in organic products sold in the retail market and holds the weak implementation of the FSSAI Act partly responsible. Last December, it made public the results of a study by Indian Agricultural Research Institute which found that a third of samples of organic vegetables from Delhi had pesticide residue above the maximum permissible level.
"I am not against organic farming but the monitoring mechanism is practically non-existent and people are being taken for a ride. Today, it's blasphemy to ask questions about anything labelled organic," says S Ganesan, an advisor to Crop Care Federation. But when a pesticide manufacturers' association takes on the organic farming sector, one could be forgiven for thinking the crusade is not entirely altruistic.
"The organic lobby in India creates their market by blaming pesticides and not talking about their virtues — that's where I come into the picture. I cannot introduce any pesticide unless I submit all required data so that the recommended use does not cause any adverse human or environmental effect but where is the regulatory compliance for organic produce?" counters Ganesan.
While adding that one has to see the issue of pesticide residue in totality, KK Sharma, the scientist at the New Delhi-based Indian Agricultural Research Institute who led the study quoted by Crop Care Federation, says there needs to be a more robust mechanism monitoring organic produce.
"If you can grow organic food, well and good, but if it contains pesticides, you shouldn't label it as organic," says Sharma, who says the institute has shared their findings with APEDA and FSSAI and will be sharing the whole report with them. "The certification needs to be done by regulatory authorities," he adds.
Proactive Retailers
In the wake of the recent Maggi imbroglio and concerns over contamination of food, more retailers have begun asking for documentation about organic certification, says Phalada's Shastry. "But they don't seem to know precisely what to ask for either," he adds.
Seshu Kumar, head of merchandising at online grocer Big Basket, says the company checks whether the produce they source is certified organic; and for fruit and vegetables it has also tied up with farmers from whom they buy directly and sell under their private label Fresho. Fresho, the company estimates, will contribute half of its total sale of fruit and vegetables, from 15% currently.
"The market is still very nascent but there needs to be clarity on what is organic and what is not. There is definitely a case for bringing in uniform standards, if not legislation," says Retailers Association of India CEO Kumar Rajagopalan.
But until legislation is adopted, customers might do well to either check whether the organic produce has been certified by an accredited agency or the PGS, in the case of packaged goods, or whether it is from a store they trust. At the end of the day, organic farming is about maintaining the trust between the producer and the consumer; as Menon says, "The consumer should not be shortchanged."
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