Organic Farming in India: Challenges and Policy Support

Organic farming is a method of crop and livestock production that involves much more than choosing not to use pesticides, fertilizers, genetically modified organisms, antibiotics and growth hormones.The area under organic farming at world level was 29211.2thousand hectares in 2005 and reached to 72213.3 thousand hectares in 2019.While, its area is increasing fast in Oceania region (49.69% of world area) and Europe (21.87% of world area).In India, the area under organic farming was 2299.2 thousand hectares (1.3% of total agricultural land) in 2019.The CAGR for area under organic farming is 9.77% at world level and India level is found as 26.14% from 2014 -2019.In India, few states have taken the lead in improving organic farming coverage, as a major part of this area is concentrated only in a handful of states.The top three states -Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra -account for about half the area under organic cultivation.There are many challenges, that are faced by organic farming.A cooperative model may be very helpful to overcome the challenges faced by individual farmers in organic farming.In India, government has also made number initiatives to give a boost to organic farming to herness its potential.