The Hindu Business Line : `Tap domestic market potential for organic products'

INDIA has tremendous scope for export of organic agricultural products but to tap this potential the country needs to carefully study the market before embarking on cultivation of the crops.

It also has a huge domestic market, which remains to be tapped, Dr Samuel B. Moser, Project Coordinator, Asia International Cooperation Division of the Swiss Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), told Business Line on Tuesday.

Dr Samuel, who is here for the official launch of the Indian Organic Market Development Project (IOMDP) on Thursday, said the country should produce good quality special organic products, which at present are either at short supply or not available in the world and Indian markets.

If everybody produced one product, it would end up with saturation in the market. For instance, organic tea has reached the saturation point in the European markets due to excess supply from China, Sri Lanka and India. This would result in drop in prices besides becoming a dissuading factor for the farmers taking up organic cultivation.

Therefore, the farmers should diversify into cultivating different crops clearly understanding the demand and supply position.

Dr Samuel said 70 per cent of the organic agriculture items produced in India was being exported. These products fetch 20 to 30 per cent higher price than that of inorganic products in the world market.

The annual growth in demand world over is estimated at 10 to 20 per cent while it was 50 per cent in the US last year.

But, unlike in the developed countries and some of the developing countries such as Thailand, organic farming in India is at a very slow pace. In India, at present only an estimated 60,000 acres are under organic cultivation. Many farmers still believe that shifting to organic farming would lead to drop in productivity. "In the initial year of conversion there could be some fall but in three years the yield would be increased. The organic cotton cultivation in Madhya Pradesh is a clear example of this, he said.

Use of chemical pesticides in cotton cultivation is the highest with 60 per cent. Now it has been reduced to zero by the farmers in this State and yet they are getting better yield. About 30 per cent of farming in India is organic as the farmers still follow the traditional system. Therefore, by adopting new approaches such as organic plant protection measures, all these farms could be transformed into fully organic complying with the organic and hygienic parameters set by the certification agencies. Certification of organic farms has also become easier and less costly, as the country has now 13 certifying agencies of which five are indigenous.

According to Dr Samuel, there are at present two to three million customers for organic agricultural products in India. But the problem is absence of marketing outlets. In the developed countries, especially in Europe and the US, every supermarket has a green-line where all the certified organic products are available.

Similar marketing network has to come up at least in the major Indian cities. But, it would become viable only when all the products needed by the customers are available at the shops and that needs a consistent supply chain. At the same time, there should be an effective promotional campaign.

He said the objective of the IOMDP set up in collaboration with the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, FiBL, International Competence Centre for Organic Agriculture and Indian Organic Farmers Producer Company Ltd is to facilitate access for certified organic products from India to the EU markets and to improve its marketing in the Indian market, he added.

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