“Scope of Organic Food Market”
Dr. Nisha Singh
Living Stone College, NC, USA
The concept of food quality has changed during the recent years, increasing number of consumers in developed countries and developing countries are becoming more health conscious. They have been spending on greener, healthy and natural food products. The total organically managed area is more than 22 million hectare worldwide and the interest in organic agriculture is emerging in many countries. The international market for organic foods is expanding especially in USA, Europe and Japan. The organic products fold in global markets is dried fruits and nuts, processed fruits and vegetables, cocoa, spices, coffee, tea, sugarcane, cotton etc. The world organic market for organic products was estimated over US$ 26 billion in 2002. In worldwide organic food consumption, Denmark and Australia are leaders with 37.3 and 34.0 euro per capita consumption per year. The international trade center has projected that organic market in the year 2010 in terms of US $, it would be around 46 billion in Japan. Looking at the global demand of organic products, International federation for organic movement (IFOAM), European Economic Committee (EEC), etc. have set a series of guidelines on organic farming
The greatest challenges facing the nation in the coming years are to provide safe food for the growing population in the country. In this regard, organic farming which is a holistic production management system for promoting and enhancing health of agro-ecosystem, has gained wide recognition as a valid alternative to conventional food products and ensures safe food for human consumption. This farming system avoids or largely excludes the use of synthetically manufactured fertilizers, pesticides, growth regulators and livestock feed additives and relies on legumes, green manures, crops rotation, crop residues, animal manures, bio-pesticides, bio-herbicides, etc. Organic farming is not of recent origin in India. It dates back to ancient period during Indus Valley Civilization and its mention was made in Rigveda, Atherva Veda, Kautilya’s Arthashastra, etc. there was use of animal dung, green manure, oil cake, animal excreta etc. Today again, the need to use organic wastes to improve soil organic matter is reemphasized by modern science to sustain agricultural productivity and production.
Organic farming in India: India’s food production is a success story following the green revolution in the late 1960’s. After the green revolution was launched in India, significant higher increase in the production of food grains was achieved by the use of high yielding varieties and higher levels of inputs of fertilizers and plant protection chemicals. During the post green revolution the production of food grains has increased fourfold, from 50.82 million tones in 1950-51 to 211.1 million tones in 2001-02. The fertilizer consumption increased 250 times from 69000 tones during 1950-51 to 17.4 million tones NPK nutrients during 2001-02 and in terms of kg/ha from 0.5 kg to 91 kg/ha, has also increased sharply. (Yojana November 2003. Although green revolution has played a leading role in making the country self-sufficient in food grains but has created some adverse effects which are matter of serious concern. The negative impact of green revolution includes:
(1)Disparity in consumption of fertilizer where the district was fertilizer consumption in the country varies from 50-200 kg/ha.
(2)Excessive use of chemical fertilizer (150-200 kg/ha) as reported from some states like Punjab and Haryana causing destruction of useful microorganisms, insects and worms in soil. It is also harmful too human health.
(3)Imbalance in Nutrient status causing significant deficiency of N, P, K, Zn, S, Mo, and B and disturbance of soil texture and its physic chemical properties.
(4)Environment degradation like depletion of stratospheric ozone, nitrate toxic etc. causing health hazards like cancer, methamoglobinemia, respiratory illness hypertension etc.
(5)Pollution with heavy metals and pesticides chemicals causing serious damage of food quality from safety point of view.
Organic farming in Uttaranchal & Uttar Pradesh-Uttaranchal is famous for its export quality Basmati Rice. Bio-fertilizers IPM (Insecticide and Pesticide Management) program has been linked with the production of Basmati-rice. To increase its production in Dehradun, Udham Singh Nagar and Haridwar. IPM program is being carried out only in these areas and the technical demonstration is organized.
In Uttaranchal under bio-composting scheme, bio village is being selected from each block. Bio composting programme is also implemented TTDC, UT, DASP, watershed development directorate and Sugarcane deptt selection villages and entire programmes will be effectively implemented monitored in consultation G.B Pant university of Agriculture and technology, Pantnagar .30000 Rhizobium culture, 20000 PSB culture and 10000 Azeobacter culture etc. will be produce annually culture packets etc. will be produce annually. (Tenth five year plan 2002-07, Uttaranchal, page-35).
To sum up,ducation was found to be the strongest contributing factor for a farmer to adopt organic farming. Therefore, more number of educated conventional farmers may be made aware of the benefits of organic farming and health hazards of contaminated food, so that theypractice organic farming at least on limited basis. Further, environmental and financial motives were found to be the primary factors behind the farmer’s conversion to organic farming. In addition to the net profit advantage of organic farming, its other hidden environmental benefits should also be brought to the notice of conventional farmers. If they are convinced with long-term benign effect of organic practices, then it would strengthen their confidence in this emerging field.