Usually when one hears of some news from Dantewada, in Chhattisgarh, it is for all the wrong reasons - primarily of the naxal disturbance. However, in the Dantewada district Katekalyan has quietly been building another identity — as the nursery of organic farming mushrooming across the district, where farmers have come together to set up a company to market their produce across the country.
Looking at agriculture as a way of reaching out to people in a conflict zone the district administration began the process of teaching farmers “systems of rice intensification”. It was shown that despite no use of fertilisers or high-yielding seeds, productivity could still be high. “In 2013, 300 farmers adopted it, and their produce increased three to four times. Now, there are over 2,000 farmers, and 170 small groups of farmers have been formed to go around the district and tell others about the benefits of organic indigenous farming. It’s a peer review system, with these groups looking at fields and certifying whether the produce is organic or not,” says a senior government official.
Read more of this in a report by Dipankar Ghose in The Sunday Express.....
