Bhubaneswar: While the Union Government has been promoting organic and natural farming across the country, Odisha has joined the bandwagon of Green Farming in a big way.
Latest Report on organic and natural farming reveals that in Odisha more than 1.37 Lakh Hectare of such farming, which is on rise.
Union Government through dedicated schemes namely National Program of Organic Produce, Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) Bhartiya Prakritik Krishi Paddati (BPKP) and Mission Organic Value Chain Development in North East Region (MOVCDNER) is promoting Organic farming.
While Odisha has promoted organic farming through all the three national programs and covered 1,37,494 Hectares.
Minister Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare, Narendra Singh Tomar in a reply said in Lok Sabha that farmers are provided financial assistance of Rs 31000/ ha / 3 years under PKVY and Rs 32500/ ha/ 3years under MOVCDNER for organic inputs such as seeds, bio-fertilisers, bio-pesticides, organic manure, compost/ vermi-compost, botanical extracts etc.
In addition to above, support is also provided for group/ Farmers Producers Organization (FPO) formation, training, certification, value addition and marketing of their organic produce. Organic cultivation on either side of River Ganga under National Mission of Clean Ganga(NMCG) , natural farming, large area certification and support for individual farmers have also been introduced under PKVY to increase area under organic farming .
Bhartiya Prakritik Krishi Padhati (BPKP), a sub scheme of Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) since 2020-21 is promoted for traditional indigenous practices .The scheme mainly emphasises on exclusion of all synthetic chemical inputs and promotes on-farm biomass recycling with major stress on biomass mulching, use of cow dung-urine formulations and plant based preparations.
Under BPKP, financial assistance of Rs 12200/ha for 3 years is provided for cluster formation, capacity building and continuous handholding by trained personnel, certification and residue analysis.
Organic Farming has also been supported under other schemes viz. Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) and Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH), Network Project on Organic Farming under Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).
Individual and small organic farmers groups (5-50 farmers) may also get registered with State Agriculture Department and nearby Regional Council (RC)of Participatory Guarantee System- India (PGS-India) to certify their farm as organic under PGS. Assistance of Rs. 2700/ha for 3 years is provided for PGS Certification (Cost of Certification is directly reimbursed to Regional Council of PGS- India)
At present organic farming is taken up in an area of 38.09 lakh hectares in the country including 6.19 lakh hectares under Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY), 1.23 lakh hectare under Namami Gange Program, 4.09 lakh hectare under BPKP (Natural Farming), and 26.57 lakh hectares under National Program for Organic Production (NPOP).