Years of good work undone as allocation decreases for organic farming

The Basavaraj Bommai administration has cut the budgetary allocation for organic farming this fiscal to Rs 20 crore, the lowest in the last eight years, irking proponents and practitioners of this sustainable model of agriculture.

Last year, the government set aside Rs 50 crore for organic farming.

Except for 2020-21, when the money allocated was about Rs 10 crore owing to the pandemic, successive governments have allocated at least Rs 40 crore to develop organic farming in the state.

Final allocation less

Not just this, over the years, while successive governments have been promising grand sums to develop organic farming, the final allocation is disappointing, lamented A S Anand, chairperson of the empowered committee of the State Organic Agriculture Mission.

For instance, in the 2021-22 budget, former chief minister B S Yediyurappa had announced a Rs 500-crore outlay for organic farming in his budget speech.

Eventually, the budgetary estimates reflected merely Rs 50 crore for organic farming-related programmes.

“Finally, the amount released was just Rs 33 crore and that, too, 15 days prior to the end of the financial year. Of what use is that money?” Anand sought to know.

He said he has given several representations to the CM, seeking increased budgetary allocation.

This decrease in budgetary allocation is pushing Karnataka on the backfoot when it comes to adoption of organic farming, said Jayaprasad, an organic farmer and president of Hassan and Kodagu Regional Cooperative Organic Farmers’ Association Federation.

Even though Karnataka was among the early adopters of organic farming, today states such as Assam and Sikkim are faring better.

Infra, marketing suffer

This is because the state didn’t follow up with adequate funds, he said. With no funds for basic infrastructure or marketing, farmers are resorting back to chemical farming, he pointed out.

“The government had sanctioned to our federation Rs 50 lakh in 2016. This was released only two months ago. This is the apathy,” he lamented.

According to him, each of the 15 organic farmers’ federations in the state requires at least Rs 25 lakh of annual funds to get more farmers to grow and market their
produce.

‘No dip, it’s diversification’

However, what may appear as a decrease in allocation is, in fact, diversification of the funds for various sustainable modes of agriculture, according to agriculture commissioner Brijesh Kumar Dikshit.

The government is looking at expanding beyond organic farming into other modes of sustainable agriculture such as natural farming, agro-ecology among others.

Focus on natural farming

“This year, there will be emphasis on natural farming. Nonetheless, this does not mean that we will not focus on organic farming,” the official told DH.

Karnataka has about 1.7 lakh hectares of land certified as organic cultivation, which is about 2% of the total cultivated land.

The current allocation of Rs 20 crore will be adequate if the government announces additional funding for natural farming or converges various programmes in related departments such as horticulture, for instance, opined N Devakumar, director of extension, GKVK, Bengaluru.

Nonetheless, it’s time for the government to focus beyond production of organic crops and look at post-production and marketing, he added.