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Organic certification: Towards sustainable organic crop production
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Organic certification: Towards sustainable organic crop production
The transition towards organic agriculture in high growth regions has not yet begun on a significant scale. This is primarily due to lack of (a) awareness, (b) non-chemical but efficient alternatives for soil nutrition, disease, pest and weed control, and (c) stable demand and market channels for organic products in the country and outside.
Some of the drought prone regions, hill areas, and tribal regions are organic already due to heterogeneous ecological conditions, poor demand for chemical inputs and weak market forces. These regions represent a tremendous opportunity for generating supply of organic produce through appropriate market interventions. Such interventions would convert the laggards of green revolution into leaders of sustainable, organic farming. This would also help in improving the socio-economic status of some of the most disadvantaged communities conserving biodiversity despite remaining poor themselves.
SRISTI has taken following research initiatives as a groundwork towards creating capability for organic certification:
Green-Market Surveys
Country-wide surveys were conducted during the summers of 1995 and 1996 to estimate consumer demand for organic products. The survey is being done in 1997 also. The combined report would perhaps provide the first country-wide profile of green consumers. From the preliminary results, it appears that most consumers have a latent demand for natural products and are willing to pay a maximum premium of about 15 per cent for the purpose.
Pesticide residue analysis
Intensive use of chemical pesticides over an extended period of time leads to non-sustainable development in three ways: (i) it triggers the pesticide treadmill leading to long-term decline in farm productivity, (ii) it creates new health hazards for human and non human beings, and (iii) it interferes with the normal ecological chain. SRISTI has initiated a study to map the pesticide residues in soils of different agro-climatic regions of Gujarat. An informal network of scientists and activists was formed last year drawing colleagues from Consumer Education Research Centre, GSFC, GAU, MS University, IISc, NIOH, JRF, IIMA and SRISTI.
The purpose of this study is to not only to have a benchmark of the eco-system health, particularly through soil based indicators but also to develop a framework for certifying non-pesticidal organic cultivation.
Soil microbial diversity
The cumulative effect of the activities of a host of resident micro-organisms, invertebrates and plants contributes to the dynamic role of the soil as a living environment. The role of micro-organisms (comprising mainly bacteria, fungi, algae, and protozoa) in the ultimate determination of soil health has been well established.
It is possible that pesticide and other chemical residues may affect the soil microbial property in an unique manner. If the correlation between the microbial diversity signatures and pesticide residues is high, one could use microbial diversity signatures as the basis for organic certification.
A total of 720 soil samples were collected for both pesticidal residue analysis and microbial diversity mapping. Analysis of 100 samples has been completed. Some interesting observations have been made and some organisms were isolated. One of the outcomes would be a map of soil ecosystem health status of Gujarat.
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