Revitalization of Rivers in India Draft Policy - Isha Guru Jaggi Vasudev

Revitalization of Rivers In India
Draft Policy Recommendation
creating of awareness about the benefit of consumption of organic
produce. According to the Organic Farming Policy 2005 of the Ministry of
Agriculture, it is very important to rationalize the importance of domestic
market development. The procedure needs to be simplified. ‘Participatory
Guarantee System’ (PGS) for domestic certification should be extensively
operationalized, where there will be interactive participation of small
farmers, enterprises, traders and consumers. Therefore, greater
government support is required for creating consumer awareness
and promotion of organic certification in order to encourage farmers
converting to an organic multi-tier fruit crop model.
Based on this, if one takes the base multi-crop pattern of mango
+ guava + pomegranate, the cumulative income surpasses cumulative
cost in the fourth year itself. On the other hand, under the conventional
single-crop model for mango, break-even is reached only in the 7 th year
(See Appendix 6 for details).
Therefore, it is evident that shifting to organic fruit crops is hugely
beneficial to the farmer in the long-term. It is also pertinent to note that
in the case of organic multi-crops, it is likely that the livelihood support
that the government would need to provide would come down in both
quantum and duration.
COMPARISON OF MULTI-FRUIT CROP MODEL WITH FIELD CROPS
According to the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development
Studies, TNAU, Coimbatore, in riparian farmlands, crops like paddy,
sugarcane and banana are generally grown, but the annual income
realized by the farmers per acre is around Rs. 50,000 (two crops/year),
Rs. 65,000 and Rs. 85,000, respectively (Annexure 12). However, in the
multi-fruit crop model, the average net income in the 5 th year is 1.83 lakh
per annum (Table 7) which is double that of conventional crops mentioned
above. This kind of model thus meets the government’s aim of doubling the
farmers’ income. The benefits of the multi-fruit crop model in sustaining
the fertility of the soil are tremendous as compared to conventional crops
which are known to greatly mine the mineral nutrients.
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