Kerala govt offers perks to TN farmers to go organic

COIMBATORE: The Kerala government, in a bid to encourage farmers in Tamil Nadu to get into organic farming, is contemplating giving them tax incentive for their produce. If all goes well, a consignment (vehicle) of certified organic vegetables or fruits from Tamil Nadu will be exempted from the 5% cess tax, which is usually levied on them.
This is one of the major recommendations on the new organic policy proposed by the Kerala-based Krishi Vidhyan Kendra.Farmers in Tamil Nadu welcome this move saying this could make them price their products more competitively and would definitely encourage more farmers to try the organic route.
Three months after the Kerala government wrote to the Tamil Nadu government about the excessive use of pesticides in vegetables and fruits by farmers, they have decided to take matters into their own hands. “The food safety department and agriculture department understands that 75% of their kitchen vegetables and fruits are bought from Tamil Nadu, so it is impractical to stop it immediately,” said a source in Kerala’s food safety department. “So they have decided to create incentives for more Tamil Nadu farmers and traders to cultivate and sell organic vegetables to Kerala,” he said.
Though the bill to pass all these recommendations has not yet been placed before the assembly, farmers in the state say that Tamil Nadu could definitely take a leaf out of their book. “It is definitely an encouraging move by their government,” says organic farmer and manufacturer of organic fertilizers and pesticides, Madhu D Ramakrishnan.
K R Sadasivam of KRS Organic Farms, says the incentives would make organic vegetables more competitive. “Defying their government’s obvious leaning towards organic farming, Tamil Nadu traders currently only buy normally grown vegetables and fruits because it is priced lower,” he said. “This tax concession might bring the price of our vegetables closer to that of normal vegetables,” said farmers who grow tomatoes, onion and grapes, vegetables which are sent to Kerala on a daily basis.
However, organic farmers say they hope that concession is not misused by traders and vendors in Kerala. “They already buy commercial fruits at low prices and resell it in Kerala as organic for a higher rate,” said Ramakrishnan. “We don’t want the wrong people availing the concession,” he said. “The public should be aware of differences between organically and commercially grown produce through simple methods like leaving it outside for a day and monitoring its freshness levels,” he added.
Despite such incentives, a sizeable section of commercial farmers remain skeptical of this bringing about a change in the state’s agriculture scene. “It is not practical for all farmers to switch to organic farming, because many who have returned to the commercial fold,” said the district secretary of Tamil Nadu Farmers Association, A Kandasamy.