India Leads in Number of Organic Producers
More than 30% of the world’s organic producers hail from India, according to the World of Organic Agriculture Report 2018 published this month. Of the total 2.7 miliion organic producers in the world, 8,35,000 organic producers are Indians. This makes it the country with the largest number of organic producers. In terms of numbers, it is way ahead of other countries. Uganda comes second with 210,352 producers and Mexico is third with 210,000 organic producers.
On an average each organic farmer in India has a farm holding of less than two hectares. Most of these are marginal farmers. In India, the area under certified organic cultivation, is only 2.59 per cent (1.5 million hectares) of the total area (57.8 million hectares).
For once China is nowhere in the scene, rather it is battling with heavy pesticide pollution of its land and water resources. This year China ranked first in the list of world’s worst food safety violation offenders.
The 19th edition of the World of Organic Agriculture report claimed that organic agriculture area, and its products value has increased. The data was collected from 178 countries by the research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), the State of Sustainability Initiative (SSI), and International Trade Center. The report was released during the 2018 edition of BIOFACH, world’s most well known organic agriculture show, held in Germany. Read more
– Sujatha