Only market driven strategies can boost organic farming
Outstandingly organic: The villagers of Meekeri in Udhagamandalam, Tamil Nadu at the entrance to their village. Though organic farming has been proved to be a low investment technology for growing crops, marketing organically produced crops has not been an easy task especially for some farmers. Lack of information on marketing channels and absence of proper governmental guidelines has forced many of them to sell their produce for a throwaway price, an irony when today, organic produce fetches a good price (Rs.3-4 per kg more) than chemical p roduces. The villagers of Meekeri village, popularly called as organic village, situated about 16 kms from Udhagamandalam, faced a similar problem in marketing their organic produce. Bio village The village has been adopted by the Institute of Commercial Horticulture (ICH), Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Udhagamandalam, under the Hill Area Development Programme as a bio-village. The farmers of the village were trained to cultivate their crops under organic practices by ICH. Crucial inputs such as Panchagavya, Dasagavya, Biodynamic compost, vermicompost, Cow pat pit Azospirillum, Phosphobacteria, and bio-control agents such as Trichoderma viride and, Pseudomonas fluorescens for growing the crops were provided by the Institute. Increase in yield Field demonstrations were conducted under the guidance of Dr. N Selvaraj, Professor and Head of the Institute. Speaking on behalf of the villagers Mr. N. Sekar, a farmer said, "there is an increase in yield of 5