Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, December 08:
Several firms based in Thailand and Switzerland besides those based in different States of India have offered to buy all the ginger, turmeric, pine-apple and chillies produced in Manipur.
The offer was intimated to manager of Progeny Orchard Farm KD Sharma who represented the State Horticulture and Soil Conservation Department in India Organic 2007, an international trade fair on organic farming held at Pusa, New Delhi on December 2.Just as Evoriens Limited based in Thailand offered to buy as much pine-apples as the State can supply, a Zurich based firm offered to buy all the mushrooms (both Shiitake and wild varieties) produced in the State.
The demand for Manipur pine-apples was also raised by the Tropical Fruits Limited of Tamil Nadu and Calico Dying and Painting Works of Gujarat.
In addition, other domestic firms have also shown keen interest in the horticultural produces of the State.
The Mumbai based Suminter India Organics Private Limited and the Aryan International, New Delhi also offered to buy all the varieties of chilly produced in the State as much as the State can supply, conveyed KD Sharma.
A common condition put up by these firms on their offers is that all the produces should be purely organic, free from any synthesised chemical or non-organic content.
Despite these handsome offers, farmers of the State are facing a disheartening situation as there is hardly any agricultural or horticultural produce which has received organic certification.
In fact, most of these crops are being cultivated using chemical fertilizers, rued KD Sharma.
As per records of the Horticulture and Soil Conservation Department, during 2006-07, the State produced 30,000 metric tonnes of ginger, 7000 metric tonnes of turmeric, 79,516 metric tonnes of pine-apple and 30,304 metric tonnes of chilly.
Of the total quantity of these produces, only 2 percent were purely organic.
As such, the State is facing a big paradox in terms of the handsome offer and the failure to meet the condition attached.
Taking into account of the huge demand for the produces of Manipur, farmers of the State can earn a substantial amount of income by exporting their produces after two years provided they switched to organic farming from now onwards, asserted KD Sharma.
Keeping in view of the huge export potential of the farm produces of Manipur, the Department of Horticulture and Soil Conservation in collaboration with the National Centre of Organic Farming, Ghaziabad under Ministry of Agriculture has taken up a project on organic farming.
Under the planned organic project, farmers of the State will be imparted training on scientific methods of organic farming, said KD Sharma.