Abstract
Organic agriculture is a holistic food production management system, which results in sound agroecological health, combat climate change, enhanced biodiversity and soil biological activities. There is an increasing interest in organic production all over the globe. With certification, there adds the confidence in the marketplace. Nepal government has authorized an organization called Organic Certification Nepal (OCN), who offers internationally accredited inspection and certification services to local operators. There are many other international organizations like NAASA (Australia), ECOCERT (France), One Cert Asia (USA), IMO (Switzerland), Control Union (Netherlands), CertAlletc. are also active in Nepal, with their agents. There are a number of methods to certify if a product is organic or not organic. This paper is an effort to find out potentials and development of organic agriculture and certification for hilly areas. Organic Valley which comprises of five VDCs out of which two VDCs is in Kavrepalanchok district and three VDCs is in Lalitpur district was surveyed by various means to assess the status of organic agriculture and certification. Through interaction with farmers, it was found 81.61% people are aware of organic farming while 68.96% are not aware of the organic certification. The major organic crop exported from the valley is coffee. Presently Internal Control System (ICS) found applicable for the certification of coffee. There is more scope of parallel cultivations in the valley, and that can be certified by using Participatory Guaranteed System (PGS). Organic farming is must since it improves environmental and human health, export possibilities and market place, discourage toxic chemical near human settlement, provide job space to youth and enhanced lifestyle.
Highlights
Nepal is an agricultural country and about 66% of people engaged in agriculture to sustain their livelihood and contributes about 33 percent to the GDP [1]
This study tries to find out the status of organic farming and certification issues in the context of the organic valley, a hilly tertian Nepal
Interview was done with six key persons involved in organic certification in Nepal, they are Mr Govinda Sharma, Dr Raju Raj Pandey, Dr Bhaba Prasad Tripathee (Senior Associate scientistInternational Rice Research Institute, Nepal) and Dr Krishna Prasad Paudyal (Scientist-Nepal Agriculture Research Council), Mr Nabin Gopal Pradhan (Service and organic growers-Fresh farm) and Mr Bhim Khatri (NARC)
Summary
Nepal is an agricultural country and about 66% of people engaged in agriculture to sustain their livelihood and contributes about 33 percent to the GDP [1]. The practice of producing organic vegetables, fruit, milk, meat, fishes and their products exists for more than ten years in some places of Nepal like Gamcha of Bhaktapur and Fulbari of Chitwan. Organic agriculture is a holistic production management system, which promotes and enhances agroecological health, including biodiversity, biological cycle and soil biological activities [2]. Harwood [3] outlines organic agriculture is a farming ways without the use of chemicals as it used to be done in 1940’s. Organic agriculture is a viable solution to preventing global hunger by providing comparatively higher yields from low input agriculture in food deficit regions [5]. Use of organic fertilizer proved to be given an excellent response as compared to inorganic fertilizer [6, 7]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call