Madhya Pradesh tops certified organic farm area list

NEW DELHI: Madhya Pradesh has a maximum certified area of 2.32 lakh hectares under organic farming out of a total 7.23 lakh hectares in India, while Manipur and Mizoram have nothing to show on this front, Parliament was informed today.

According to the data placed by Minister of State for Agriculture Mohanbhai Kundaria before the Rajya Sabha, organic farming is undertaken in 85,536 hectares (ha) in Maharashtra, 66,020 ha in Rajasthan and 60,843 ha in Sikkim.

Certified organic farm area in Odisha is about 49,813 ha, Gujarat (46,863 ha), Uttar Pradesh (44,670 ha), Karnataka (30,716 ha) and Uttarakhand (24,739 ha), the data showed.

In the case of Manipur and Mizoram, there is no area under certified organic farming.

Striking a positive tone, Kundaria said: "Cultivated area under certified organic farming has grown almost 17-fold in the last one decade (7.23 lakh ha in 2013-14 from 42,000 ha in 2003-04)."

The government, the minister added, is implementing a cluster-based programme to encourage the farmer for promoting organic farming under "Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY)".

An amount of Rs 300 crore has been allocated for implementing PKVY in 2015-16. The programme aims to set up 10,000 clusters covering 5 lakh acres under organic farming in three years.

Under PKVY, groups of farmers will be motivated to take up organic farming by forming a cluster with 50-acre land in total. There will be no liability on farmers for expenditure on certification.

Every farmer will be provided Rs 20,000 per acre in three years for seed to harvesting of crops and transporting produce to the market.

Organic farming will be promoted by use of traditional resources, and the organic products will be linked to the market.

Besides PKVY, the government is promoting organic farming through various schemes such as National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture, Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture, National Mission on Oilseeds and Oil Palm and Network Project on Organic Farming of ICAR.