Is Organic Farming a Solution? - Indian Agriculture

You will be astonished to know, the latest data shows that, Globally its less than 1% of total estimated agriculture land of close to 5000 million hectares.

Indian data again shows a fraction, out of 190 million hectares of cultivated land, only 0.5 million hectares are in Organic Agriculture.

"Organic agriculture exists more in the media than in the field. We have done an extensive investigation, most of the products labeled and sold as Organic in India are fake. The consumer is being taken for a ride, he buys a piece at the three or four times the normal price, buying something that's organic which in date it is not." - Sh. S. Ganesan, Advisor, CCFI.



Tea cultivation in India is unique from any other agricultural produce in the country, till recently it has been traditionally done in large tea estates of up to a thousand hectares, providing livelihood to thousands of workers. However over the last decade many farmers with small land holdings have also taken to tea cultivation due to better returns.

CCFI members conduct extensive training sessions for the new tea growers focusing not just on judicious and timely use of agro-chemicals but also on the safe disposal methods of its packaging. Whether it's the tea estate managers or the small tea growers both are unanimous in the critical role of agro chemicals in saving their crop.



"As far as the Indian tea industry is concerned there are more than a hundred species of insects being reported, even though we have non chemical control strategies, but we need to depend on these chemicals to get rid of the pests at the proper time to avoid crop loss" - Dr. A Babu, Tea Research Association, Darjeeling.