Health conscious organic vegetable loving consumers now have a reason to smile, as Agriculture Department of the State has started a vegetable store on its Krishi Bhawan premise at Kanke Road from Friday. This is something which those visiting at the store last Friday already know.
But what they don’t know yet is that buoyed by the tremendous response which the first of its kind Haat-type store in state received on its first day, the department is planning to run the store twice or even thrice weekly soon, once the supply chain allows the department to do so.
“It was a pleasant surprise seeing people pouring in from everywhere to buy organic cabbage cauliflower, lady finger, potato and tomato among many other vegetables on the opening day of the store. Even the farmers had not expected such kind of demand. This is why they ran out of everything which they had brought to sell within hours. If this response remains consistent for two-three Fridays, we can definitely think of providing space for at least twice a week,” said Agriculture Director Jata Shankar Chowdhary.
He added that the Organic Farming Authority of Jharkhand (OFAJ) had been trying to start open market-place for these farmers since long. As the capital city consumers remained presumably more educated than other parts of the district as far as organic products were concerned, they might have decided to start it from here in the city itself, and rightly so.
“The project is being handled by OFAJ people itself and they are trying hard to educate farmers to go organic as much as possible. They are trying to get the store here at least twice a week. Though farmers got huge response from outsiders, even if they couldn’t have received, the department employees are in themselves a big number as consumers,” said Chowdhary.
There are no middlemen in between Farmers growing organic vegetables would come here, put their stalls and go back after their last stuff is sold. They need to pay nothing and to no one,” said Chowdhary.
The irony with Jharkhand is that even after three years of its formation, OFAJ has been able to take only 26,000 Hectares of land for organic farming so far out of little over 22 lakh hectares of agri-land in state. This is nowhere in comparison to one of its next-to-next door neighbour Sikkim, which has gone 100 per cent organic.
“Organic farming, which needs no fertiliser and pesticides/insecticides use in agriculture has a huge possibility in Jharkhand, farmers in rural Jharkhand have remained accustomed to old ways of farming itself, close to organic farming,” said Chowdhary. He added that in terms of percentage of land being converted to organic farm, Jharkhand is lagging behind other states, but it was a compulsion.
Most of the northeastern hilly states are ahead of Jharkhand in terms of organic farming. Even Bihar had sanctioned over Rs 250 crores for the promotion of organic farming for five years ending last year.