Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Wayanad for several years, due to fears of excessive residues of the pesti-
cide furadan in and on the fruits. I had heard similar information from
K. M. George, the organic farmer who had warned his fellow farmers at a
training session about the dangers of eating the popular banana chips and
buying them for children.
Chackochan also disclosed that while he was representing Kerala's
organic farmers and IOFPCL at Biofach, the annual global organic trade
fair in Germany, European buyers had approached him and expressed
their reluctance to purchase Indian organic products due to worries about
chemical contamination. Given this encounter and the adulteration-
prone fruits and vegetables of India, he believed that there was only one
solution for honest Indian farmers wanting to make a living in agricul-
ture: to obtain third-
party certification of their organic products. Cer-
tification could ameliorate such concerns about the safety of food both
within and outside the country. He also insisted that third-party organic
certification was the key to gaining the trust of consumers and buyers and
building a dependable reputation in international markets.3
By contrast, another organic farmer and vocal proponent of the state's
2010 organic farming policy, K. V. Dayal, regards organic certification as
another form of unsustainable agriculture. “If organic farming is [done]
for export purposes,” he told me during an interview, “it will be polluted.
It will be destroyed.”
Dayal is not certified organic for export, but he is an organic farmer
who does not use chemicals, synthetic inputs, or GMOs, and he is con-
sidered a champion of organic farming in many environmental circles in
Kerala. He was also present at several of the discussions leading up to
the enactment of the 2010 organic farming policy, where he publicly con-
fronted several agricultural scientists when they dismissed the knowledge
of Kerala's organic farmers.4 “W hy should we have you?” he had asked
the Agriculture Department. Thanal features Dayal at many of its events
and demonstrations and describes him as one of the first organic farmers
in the state.
“A certiicate—a mere paper—cannot declare that it is an organic
product,” Dayal said of a crop. “The human being who is involved in that
