The Hindu : Front Page : Outlet to sell organic produce

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 26, 2006
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Outlet to sell organic produce

Karthik Madhavan

Price will be only five per cent more than other items

GOOD TO EAT: Organic Farmers' Federation of Erode district will start with sales of rice. — PHOTO: M. GOVARTHAN

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ERODE: ` Sakkarai pongal' cooked during Pongal will no doubt be sweet. But how about making it healthier? Well, if the plan conceived by the Organic Farmers' Federation of Erode district materialises, it will be a reality shortly.

For the Federation will open, or in a sense reopen, a retail outlet that will exclusively sell organic produce from paddy to vegetables to fruits.

Middlemen

"We want to directly sell organic food to customers, who will get to enjoy the fruits of our labour. The same, however, gets negated when organic food is sold through middlemen to the market, where it gets mixed with produces grown using fertilizers, and customer stands to lose the benefits,'' says Federation's coordinator R. Selvam, also an organic farmer from Arachalur.

As a first step the Federation plans to begin sales with rice and then slowly expand to include vegetables and fruits. And, the price will be only five per cent more than the market price of inorganic produce. This arrangement, Mr. Selvam says, will help both farmers as well customers, who he terms co-producers.

"The ceiling of five per cent is only to distinguish organic produce. Not only that we also want to democratise the sale of organic produce so that it is not confined to only an affordable few,'' he says.

He further says the plan is to sell through the farmers' association, which will take a small cut in the sales as maintenance charge, as was the case when organic produce was sold five years ago.

In 2002 the Federation opened an outlet and sold almost all organic produce, barring cash crops. Then the sale was too good that the farmers were unable to meet the demands. But, they had to close within a year, as successive droughts ended their efforts.

Forced to close

"Though the business was good, drought forced us to shut shop. Now, we reopen to sell our produce at a negligible premium, which will give us the satisfaction of not only selling clean food to customers but also the recognition for organic farming and farmer," says Mohanasundaram, an organic farmer.

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