CERTIFICATION CONFUSION
For any food to be sold as organic in India, whether fresh produce or packaged product, it must be certified via one of two systems. That road can be long, winding and often expensive.
NATIONAL PROGRAMME FOR ORGANIC PRODUCTION (NPOP)
Adopted in 2001 and administered by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, it was originally meant for exports.
Under this programme, one of 28 third-party certifiers must check that a farm is free of manufactured chemicals (fertilisers, insecticides, herbicides, hormones and pesticides).
In case of processed food, the certifier checks that the produce came from an Npop-certified farm and was processed by a Npop-certified processor.
Certified foods carry the India Organic logo. The standards are recognised by the European Commission, America’s USDA, and Switzerland. THE CATCH Third-party certification is expensive and must be renewed annually. So the programme is restricted to big companies, ones that work with farmers over thousands of acres, and earn revenues largely from exporting non-perishables – oilseeds, processed foods, cereals, tea, spices and pulses.
PARTICIPATORY GUARANTEE SYSTEM FOR INDIA (PGS-INDIA)
Practised in 38 countries and recognised by the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare since 2015, it certifies clusters of small farmers (two and five acres each).
Five or more growers who live close to each other form a group and get trained in organic farming under a government scheme.
Then, with help from Regional Councils
(India now has 562), farmers inspect each other’s holdings. Should a grower violate any norms, their produce is not sold through the group.
India now has 6,646 PGS groups, covering about 2.1 lakh farmers. THE CATCH
The system is poorly funded, farmers are often trained badly and the system does little to create a long-term market for organic produce.
The PGS is not recognised by the US and European Union, two big markets for organic food. So small farmers still cannot sell their produce abroad.
They can’t sell their food to Npop-certified processors either. This means they often have little incentive to stay organic.