While exploring various business opportunities, 25-year-old business
management graduate Sachin Tahmane hit upon organic farming as having
promising growth potential. A recent Yes Bank
report said the organic food sector is growing at about 20% in India,
with more than 100 retail organic outlets in Mumbai and about 60 in
Bangalore. That's a big change from 18 years ago, when Sanjay Pawar and
Sadubhau Shelake of Nashik were among the pioneers of organic farming.
Their principle was: "We don't want to eat poison and we don't want to
feed poison to others." At that time, they couldn't charge a premium for chemical-free food due to lack of awareness among consumers.
Things have changed since then. Their Kashyap group of about 350
organic growers has a loyal clientele, which includes celebrity
customers, who queue up to buy the produce at the Sunday farmers'
market. "Kiran Rao is our regular customer," said Shelake. The Kashyap
group farmers use direct marketing, without any middlemen involved. "The
awareness about organic food is now percolating to the taluka level,"
Shelake said. Even Vidarbha, infamous for farmer suicides, is not behind
in winning converts to organic farming. Agricultural graduate Ashish
Shinde of Amaravati is one of the leading suppliers to leading organic
retail brands in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and other big cities.
"There is tremendous growth in demand for organic food in the last few
years. The number of organic farmers in the two talukas in my district
has increased from 230 six years ago to more than 1,000 today," Shinde
said. According to HB Bablad, head of Research Institute of Organic
Farming, the reasons for the increase in organic farming are economical
as well as ecological. Amol Nirban, business development manager
at Ecocert, the organic certifying agency, said the companies involved
in organic farming are mostly exportoriented.
Individual farmers
catering to the domestic market are of two types: "The first type is of
the traditional farmer practising organic farming to earn their bread
and butter. The second type is the increasing breed of urban farmers,
who have turned to growing organic food as a passion or liking," said
Nirban. Most of the growth in organic farming has happened without much
government support, entirely driven by market demand and the efforts of
farmers, who learn from each other. Dilip Deshmukh, vice-president of
Maharashtra Organic Farmers Federation (MOFF), an NGO working in the
area of organic farming, said, "The Maharashtra government has done very
little to implement its own policy on organic farming declared in
January 2013."To know more visit our site http://allindiayellowpage.com.