Government of India has been promoting Organic farming in the country through dedicated scheme namely Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) since 2015-16. The scheme stress on end to end support to organic farmers i.e from production to certification and marketing. Post harvest management support including processing, packing, marketing is made integral part of these schemes to encourage organic farmers.

Under PKVY, farmers are provided financial assistance of Rs 50,000 per hectare/ 3 years, out of which Rs. 31,000 (62%) is provided directly through DBT for inputs (bio fertilizers, bio-pesticides, organic manure, compost, vermi-compost, botanical extracts etc).

An amount of total Rs 29.59 crore has been released to Assam for 220 clusters benefitting 11000 farmers for 4425 ha area against the target 4451 since 2015-16 to till date.

Government has initiated Large Area Certification (LAC) programme since 2020-21 to certify large traditional/default organic areas such as hills, islands, tribal or desert belt with no past history of GMO and agro chemical uses. Entire certification process gets completed within 3-6 months time. This   reduces the conversion period from 2-3 years to few months and allows farmers for marketing of their produce at premium prices.   Car Nicobar and Nancowry group of Island under the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands with 14,491 ha cultivable area is the first Large Contiguous Area declared as certified organic. Government of India have already sanctioned and released Rs 11.48 lakh to Union Territory of Ladakh for LAC.

This information was given in a written reply by the Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Shri Narendra Singh Tomar in Lok Sabha.

****

APS

(Release ID: 1739994) Visitor Counter : 9830