Problems and Prospects of Organic Farming in India

Regarded as a fringe movement of dubious repute, organic farming started from rather meager roots; and yet has managed to gain respect and spread worldwide with sales in the order of about US$40 billion per year. Today one of the debates in this regards is whether organic farming is just a status symbol, or is it really better for us? Failures of green revolution, fall in biodiversity and crop yields, deteriorating levels of human end environmental health etc. makes us rethink agriculture in general and sustainable agriculture in particular. For instance in 2010, farmers, environmentalist and policy-makers in Kerala took the unprecedented step of enacting a policy that requires all Kerala growers to farm organically by 2020. Kerala's example shows that when done right, this kind of agriculture can be good for everyone in our global food system. This paper intends to provide a variety of perspectives to examine nature and relevance of organic farming, and explain the pattern of growth of the organic food system, with reference to India. To its credit, the paper also addresses some of the issues, and challenges in its future development