Rediscovering Organic Farming in Rural India

It didn’t take long for him to iden­tify agri­cul­ture, which accounts for almost half of India’s work­force, as his cho­sen sector.

Kapoor’s search began with a train jour­ney across India, the Jagriti Yatra, where he joined 400 other young peo­ple eager to gain inspi­ra­tion for entre­pre­neur­ial work. The expe­ri­ence intro­duced him to the chal­lenges fac­ing farm­ers in India, as well as the atten­dant opportunities.

“Our agri­cul­tural sys­tem is in a mess,” he said. “Many of our farm­ers are under­paid, mal­nour­ished, are fre­quently using chem­i­cals that harm their health, and rely on prac­tices that seri­ously degrade their land. Not only this, the food that they are pro­duc­ing is often coated in harm­ful chem­i­cals, has lit­tle taste and is low in essen­tial nutrients.”

Kapoor was also struck by what he describes as the “lost tal­ent” in rural areas. “I was amazed to dis­cover that a lot of peo­ple in rural India actu­ally have BAs and MAs, but there are no jobs for them. Their only option is to move to the cities to take jobs in fac­to­ries. If you want to sup­port rural devel­op­ment, you have to cre­ate the right oppor­tu­ni­ties. Farmers are still not really look­ing at agri­cul­ture as a business.”

Kapoor moved to rural Uttar Pradesh and started a two-acre demon­stra­tion farm to exper­i­ment with dif­fer­ent agri­cul­tural prac­tices and spend time among farm­ers. The more farm­ers he spoke to, the more con­vinced he became of the rel­e­vance of organic prac­tices as a solu­tion to many of the chal­lenges they face.

“Organic farm­ing, when prac­ticed prop­erly, reduces the input costs for fer­tilis­ers, pes­ti­cides and seeds, dra­mat­i­cally improves farmer health and enhances the fer­til­ity and resilience of their land,” said Kapoor, as we trav­elled to Haryana, just north of Delhi, to visit a group of farm­ers he plans to work with. “Of course, it also gives you tastier, safer and more nutri­tious produce.”

The prob­lem is that the right incen­tives for farm­ers to con­vert to more sus­tain­able prac­tices have not been effec­tively cre­ated, said Kapoor. “People want good, nutri­tious food but they don’t want to pay more for it. Farmers want to be paid fairly for their work, and to farm in a way that can sup­port them long into the future, but today’s sys­tems don’t pro­vide for that. Certification is expen­sive, many of their skills have been lost and much of the money paid for good pro­duce is, in any case, lost to middlemen.”

As a result of these expe­ri­ences, Kapoor set up a com­pany, Jagriti Agro Tech, which, on Thursday, will start to sup­ply afford­able organic fruit and veg­eta­bles direct to house­holds in Delhi, sourced from farm­ers in the sur­round­ing states under the brand name I Say Organic.

Click here to read the rest of this arti­cle at The Guardian UK.