With rising health consciousness and change in lifestyle organic food has emerged as the biggest revolution and food trend. In general organic food is certified through a certification process since organic farming differs from the conventional farming in terms of the whole agricultural process from ploughing to sowing. It is not mere avoiding chemicals but a comprehensive set of procedure. Thus there exist a range of certifications for the organic produce. In India there exist two type of certifications for organic produce. To have consonance with the international standards, the following bodies were formed in India to take steps to identify organic products and certify them:
NPOP certification based on Export and Import National Programme on Organic Production (NPOP) defines the regulatory mechanism and is regulated under two different acts for export and domestic markets.
NPOP notified under Foreign Trade Development and Regulation Act (FTDR) looks after the export requirement. The NPOP notified under this act has already been granted equivalence by European Union and Sweden. USDA has also accepted the conformity assessment system of NPOP. Due to this, the product certified by any Indian accredited certification agency under NPOP can be exported to Europe, Sweden and USA without the requirement of re-certification. To look after the requirement of import and domestic market the same NPOP has been notified under Agriculture Produce Grading, Marking and Certification Act (APGMC).
Due to the equivalence commanded by the NPOP certification in several developed countries and its third party verification system, it has remained a preferred choice. However it is an expensive process as compared to PGS certification. Thus the government should explore the possibility of bilateral agreement with the countries showing interest in procuring the same for facilitating export of PGS certified organic produce since it provides level playing field to the marginal and small farmers.
Another possibility exists for extending interoperability between the two certifications operational in India viz. NPOP and PGS certification. India is at the cusp of organic revolution as per FIBL & IFOAM Organics International Year Book 2018 India is ranked 9th in in terms of World’s Organic Agricultural land and 1st in terms of total number of organic producers. As per APEDA database, India produced around 1.70 million metric tonnes (2017-18) of certified organic products in 2017-18.
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