12,000 farmers receive C1 Certificates attesting their produce as Organic

ORGANIC MISSION COMPLETES PHASE-1 TARGET
GANGTOK, 09 Dec: The State Government has been working on a war-footing to achieve the target of making 50,000 hectares of cultivable land fully organic in order to make Sikkim an Organic State by 2015. The State Organic Mission was officially launched by the Chief Minister on 15 August 2010.
Addressing a press conference at Chintan Bhawan today, Agriculture and Horticulture Secretary, Vishal Chauhan, informed that this week was an important milestone for the State towards achieving this target as 18,000 hectares taken up in the first phase received the C1 certificate.

He informed that the State Government has set a target of converting 50,000 hectares of cultivable land into organic and the target for 2010-11 was 18,000 hectares, which was handed over to different service providers. He added that with the completion of the certification process for the first year, C1 certificates have been issued to more than 12,000 farmers of the state this week.
The Secretary informed that Organic Certification is a three year process and during the first year, C1 certificate is issued and subsequently C2 certificate is issued and after the completion of the third year, a thorough verification of the land would be done by certifying agencies before issuing the organic certificate.
“After getting the Organic Certificate the produce of that land will be termed as an organic product as it is the land which has to be organically certified and not the product. When the land is certified the product will automatically become an organic product,” the Secretary detailed.
It was also informed that this adopted 18,000 hectares land will be completely certified by 2013. He further mentioned that organic certification of the land has to be renewed every year.
The Secretary maintained that during the last one year no discrepancy has been observed by the Certifying Agency and no non-conformity reports have been received on the 18,000 hectares of land covering 12486 farmers so far, which means that the farmers of Sikkim have adopted Organic Farming.
He also shared that there are 20 different organic certifying agencies in the country out of which three were chosen for the state. The C1 certificate to these 18,000 hectares were issued by three APEDA accredited certifying agencies- IMO Control, Bangalore, LACON, Kerala and One-cert Asia, Jaipur.
The Secretary informed that for the year 2011-12 another 20,000 hectares of land has been given to different service providers. He added that the department is working hard to convert the entire 50,000 hectares of cultivable land into fully organic by 2015.
He stated that converting the entire cultivable land into organic is a massive task and everyone concerned is working hard towards achieving the mission.
Additional Executive Director of Sikkim Organic Mission, Dorji Tenzing Bhutia, spoke on the benefits, targets, activities in the State Organic Mission and also explained the organic certification process.
He informed that three livelihood schools have been set up at Tadong, Bermiok and Daramdin to create local manpower for the success of this mission. He informed that existing soil testing laboratories were strengthened and mobile soil testing laboratories were also set up and likewise, a bio-fertilizer production unit has also been established at Majhitar. He also informed that the department has been working on marketing linkage for the state’s organic products. IPR Secretary, KS Topgay also addressed the press conference.