Maneka Gandhi bats for organic farming

AHMEDABAD: Emphasising the need for encouraging organic farming, Union Minister Maneka Gandhi today said there was no need to use chemicals or pesticides for crop protection.

The Union Minister for Women and Child Development was here to inaugurate the 12th edition of three-day-long 'Sattvik Food Festival' organised by NGO Society for Research and Initiative for Sustainable Technology and Institutes ( SRISHTI) at the IIM Ahmedabad campus here today, an official statement said.

"We do not need any chemical or pesticides (in farming) and people who know organic farming should be encouraged," the statement quoted Gandhi as saying.

"We have various methods to prepare different types of cuisines through organic ways and we have vast diversity of cuisines as well," she said.

At the festival, the minister tasted and bought some of the food items after she had visited all the 78 stalls in the food festival, the statement added.

The Sattvik food festival was launched ten years ago with a view to promote conservation of agro-biodiversity and creation of demand for nutritional crops, which are rarely or less cultivated in the present time, the organisers said.

The festival started with the theme 'Visrati Vangiyo no Sattvik Mahotsav' (festival for rarest cuisines), which has been continuing in each year, the organisers said.