Lok Sabha Question No. 3139 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2023-08-08
Subject: Promoting Natural Farming under PKVY
Ministry: AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE
Asked by: Umesh G. Jadhav, Beesetti  Venkata Satyavathi, Behanan Benny

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE

## LOK SABHA

## UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 3139

TO BE ANSWERED ON THE 8 TH  AUGUST, 2023

## PROMOTING NATURAL FARMING UNDER PKVY

3139. DR. UMESH G. JADHAV: DR. BEESETTI VENKATA SATYAVATHI: SHRI BENNY BEHANAN:

Will the Minister of AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE क ृ िष एवं िकसान कʞाण मंũी be pleased to state:

- (a) the steps taken by the Government to promote natural farming in the country under Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY);
- (b) whether any training sessions, workshops and conferences have been organised to promote and implement the said yojana;
- (c) if  so, the details of the training sessions/ workshops/conferences held in the State of Karnataka during the last three years particularly in Kalaburagi district and the percentage of small and marginal farmers benefited by the said yojana in the country including Karnataka;
- (d) the  details  of  the  PKVY  being  run  by  the  Government  to  ensure  promotion  of commercial  organic  production  through  certified  organic  farming  along  with  the  measures being taken thereunder and the progress made in this respect, State/UT-wise;
- (e) whether the Government has reduced the allocation for PKVY to zero in the Budget Estimate (BE) for the year 2023-24;
- (f) the  measures  being  taken  by  the  Government  to  encourage  10  million  farmers  to adopt natural farming over the next three years; and
- (g) the  action  which  the  Government  has  taken  to  address  the  weaknesses  in  the certification  of  Indian  organic  products  to  ensure  the  integrity  of  the  organic  certification process?

## ANSWER

MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE क ृ िष एवं िकसान कʞाण मंũी (SHRI NARENDRA SINGH TOMAR)

(a): Government  has  been  promoting  organic  farming  in  the  country  since  2015-16 through the scheme  of  Paramparagat  Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY).  PKVY  is  being implemented in all the States other-than North Eastern (NE) States, across the country. The scheme  provide  end  to  end  support  to  farmers  engaged  in  organic  farming  i.e.  from production to processing, certification and marketing and post harvest management support including  processing.  Under  PKVY,  farmers  of  various  states  in  the  country  are  provided financial  assistance  of  Rs  50000/ha  for  3  years  out  of  which,  Rs  31000/  ha  /  3  years  is provided directly to farmers through DBT for on-farm and off-farm organic inputs.

Under the Flagship Programme of Namami Gange 'ARTH GANGE' Programme, 1.23 lakh ha area have been covered along the Ganga basin by developing 6181 clusters. Under PKVY 131 FPOs have been formed in 17 States/UTs under the provisions of 10,000 FPOs Scheme.

In  the  year  2019-2020  the  Ministry  of  Agriculture  and  Farmer's  Welfare  initiated  a component  of  natural  farming  under  PKVY,  Bharatiya  Prakritik  Krishi  Paddhati  (BPKP). Training  and  capacity  building  are  integral  part  of  the  scheme.  Under  BPKP,  financial assistance of Rs 12200/ha for 3 years is provided for cluster formation, capacity building and continuous handholding, certification and residue analysis while Rs. 2000/ha for 3 years is provided to farmer as incentives through DBT. Moreover, farmers can also avail assistance @ Rs. 8800/ha for 3 years from PKVY funds for marketing, value addition and publicity of natural farming products. So far 4.09 lakh ha area has been sanctioned to eight States under BPKP.

(b) & (c): BPKP Scheme guidelines provide for manpower for handholding and capacity building through Champion Farmers & Clusters Coordinator (CCCF), Senior Level Resource Persons  (SLRP),  Community  Resource  Person  (CRP),  Lead  Resource  Person  (LRP), Cluster Office Management & Data Entry Operations and capacity building, exposure visits and trainings of field functionaries are as under:

## (i) 7 days on-field practical training including exposure visit to LRPs and CRPs:

One per year 7 days training including exposure visit to Natural farmers for LRPs & CRPs to be provided by BPKP/ZBNF experts and Champion Natural Farmers.

## (ii) Yearly Capacity building of all Resource Persons (CRP/LRP/Expert Farmers/SLRP etc.) by external resource persons:

One two days annual capacity building training for all resource persons

## (iii) Capacity Building of Clusters through Expert Natural Farming farmers/or Agriculture Graduate/SLRP:

20 Cluster farmers training per year in batch of 50 farmers.

## (iv) Training of the farmers by LRPs and CRPs:

5 trainings of one day duration at village level for all the farmers in a batch of 25 farmers.

BPKP  component  under  the  Centrally  Sponsored  Scheme  of  PKVY,  is  being implemented  by  the  State  Governments.  The  details  of  training  sessions/  work-shops/ conferences  held/organized  by  the  States  and  the  beneficiary  level  data  of  small  and marginal farmers are maintained at the State level only.

Government  of  Karnataka  has  informed  that  in  Karnataka  PKVY  Phase  II  is  being implemented  in  18  districts.  A  total  11630  number  of  farmers  have  been  enrolled.  19 Exposure  visits  have  been  conducted,  234  no  of  Training  programmes  for  Farmers  have been organized & 56 Field functionaries have been trained.  In Kalburgi District, total 740 ha. area have been covered involving 792 farmers. 3 Exposure visits have been conducted, 74 no of Training programmes for Farmers have been organized & 5 Field Functionaries have been trained. One Work shop was conducted and one hands on training was conducted for farmers.

Karnataka  State has not  opted for  natural farming  under  BPKP. However,  the  area sanctioned in the country under the BPKP since 2020-21 is given below:

| Sl. No.   | States           |   Area in Ha |
|-----------|------------------|--------------|
| 1.        | Andhra Pradesh   |       100000 |
| 2.        | Chhattisgarh     |        85000 |
| 3.        | Kerala           |        84000 |
| 4.        | Himachal Pradesh |        12000 |
| 5         | Jharkhand        |         3400 |
| 6.        | Odisha           |        24000 |
| 7.        | Madhya Pradesh   |        99000 |
| 8.        | Tamil Nadu       |         2000 |
|           | Total            |       409400 |

(d): Government is implementing Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) for promotion of commercial organic production through certified organic farming since 2015-16. The PKVY scheme provides end to end support to organic farmers i.e. from production to processing and  certification  as  well  as  for  marketing  by  a  clusters  approach.  Trainings  and  capacity buildings  as  well  as  post  harvest  management  support  including  processing,  packing  and marketing  are  made  integral  part  of  the  scheme.  The  primary  focus  of  the  scheme  is  to encourage farmers to adopt organic farming in cluster mode to help them to create a value and supply chain with robust focus on marketing.

Under  PKVY,  States/UTs  of  the  country  are  provided  financial  assistance  of  Rs. 50000/ha  for  3  years  out  of  which,  Rs.  31000/ha/3  years  is  provided  directly  to  farmers through DBT for on-farm and off-farm organic inputs.  Financial assistance of Rs. 8800/ha for 3 years is provided for marketing, packaging, branding, value addition and other marketing initiatives.  Apart from this, Rs. 2700/ha for 3 years is provided for certification and residue analysis.    Under  the  scheme  assistance  is  also  provided  @Rs.  7500/ha  for  3  years  for training and capacity building.

To help commercial production of organic products, farmers are provided assistance for  online PGS Certification. National Centre for Organic and Natural Farming (NCONF), a subordinate office under Ministry of Agriculture, has a dedicated PGS secretariat to look after authorization of Regional Councils (RCs) for facilitating the local groups to take up PGS-India certification.  74  RCs  have  been  authorized.  Moreover,  90  Service  Providers  have  been empanelled  for  training,  marketing  and  brand  building  etc.  The  scope  of  certification  has been extended to Individual farmer certification in the year 2021.  Government has initiated Large Area  Certification  (LAC)  programme since 2020-21  to  certify  large  traditional/default organic areas such as hills, islands, tribal or desert belt with no past history of Genetically Modified  Organism  (GMO)  and  agro  chemical  uses.  A  total  area  of  14,445  ha  has  been certified under LAC under Car Nicobar and Nancowry group of Islands in Union Territory of

A&N Islands. 5000 ha area of Ladakh and 2700 ha area of Lakshadweep have also been brought under PGS Certification under LAC Programme.

Since  2015-16,  under  PKVY,  11.86  lakh  ha  area  has  been  covered  under  organic farming by developing 32384 clusters involving 16.19 lakh farmers. In addition, 8 States have developed  their  own  brands  for  organic  products.    Since  2015-2016  to  2022-2023,  Rs. 1854.01 crore has been released under the scheme.

The  state-wise  details  of  progress  in  terms  of  area  covered,  number  of  farmers benefitted  and  fund  released  under  PKVY  since  2015-16  to  2022-2023  is  given  at Annexure-I .

(e): PKVY is a part of Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) - Cafeteria scheme and Rs. 469.85 crore have been earmarked for the PKVY component in the RKVY Cafeteria scheme for the Financial Year 2023-24.

(f): In order to promote natural farming and involve farmers on a larger scale to undertake chemical free farming, it is proposed to scale up Bharatiya Prakritik Krishi Paddhati (BPKP) scheme in mission mode to cover 7.5 lakh ha. area by developing 15000 clusters across the country  during  2023-2024  to  2025-2026.  It  is  also  proposed  to  establish  10,000  Bio-input Resource Center (BRC) across the country for continuous supply of cow dung and cow urine based bio-inputs  like  Jeevaamrit,  Beejaamrit  and  Ghanajeevaamrit  etc.  to  promote  natural farming on a larger scale and to initiate 1 crore farmers into natural farming.

(g): To  ensure  the  integrity  of  PGS  organic  certification  process,  following  measures/ improvements have been made under PGS- India programme:

-  Residue analysis and soil testing have been included and provision has been made to upload details on web-portal. Provision has been made for providing assistance @ Rs 2700/  ha  for  3  years  for  residue  analysis  of  sample  from  NABL  laboratory  and certification.
-  Traceability  of  certified  organic  products  through  online  verification  of  Local  group, Certificate number or Transaction certificate number on the web-portal.
-  Mobile  number  and  identification  ID  have  been  made  mandatory  to  register  farmer under PGS India certification
-  Participation  of  Local  groups  in  training  &  meetings,  documentation  and  record maintenance under PGS India certification have been made mandatory for uploading on the portal

Annexure-I State-wise details of progress in terms of area covered, number of farmers benefitted

## and fund released under PKVY since 2015-16 to 2022-2023

| S. No.   | State                   |     Area in ha. |   Farmers |   Fund Released to State (Rs in lakh.) |
|----------|-------------------------|-----------------|-----------|----------------------------------------|
| 1.       | Andhra Pradesh          | 206000          |    265000 |                               31721.5  |
| 2.       | Arunachal Pradesh       |    380          |       950 |                                 234.56 |
| 3.       | Assam                   |   4400          |     11000 |                                3012.55 |
| 4.       | Bihar                   |  24600          |     21350 |                                4470.08 |
| 5.       | Chhattisgarh            | 109000          |     60000 |                                6006.42 |
| 6.       | Goa                     |  10080          |     25200 |                                 504.9  |
| 7.       | Gujarat                 |   2000          |      5000 |                                1094.12 |
| 8.       | Haryana                 |    400          |      1000 |                                 104.56 |
| 9.       | Himachal Pradesh        |  17700          |     14250 |                                3044.52 |
| 10.      | Jammu & Kashmir         |    560          |      1400 |                                 356.31 |
| 11.      | Jharkhand               |  23940          |     50000 |                                2682.42 |
| 12.      | Karnataka               |  20900          |     52250 |                                4996.36 |
| 13.      | Kerala                  |  96380          |     30950 |                                5670.47 |
| 14.      | Ladakh                  |  10000          |     12500 |                                 221.85 |
| 15.      | Lakshadweep             |   2700          |      6750 |                                 227.2  |
| 16.      | Madhya Pradesh          | 175560          |    191400 |                               13380.6  |
| 17.      | Maharashtra             |  32160          |     80400 |                               10135.5  |
| 18.      | Manipur                 |    600          |      1500 |                                 163.46 |
| 19.      | Meghalaya               |    900          |      2250 |                                 448.12 |
| 20.      | Mizoram                 |    680          |      1700 |                                 469.61 |
| 21.      | Nagaland                |    480          |      1200 |                                 333.72 |
| 22.      | Delhi                   |  10000          |     25000 |                                 471.47 |
| 23.      | Odisha                  |  44800          |     52000 |                                8108.6  |
| 24.      | Pondicherry             |    160          |       400 |                                  28.55 |
| 25.      | Punjab                  |   7000          |     17500 |                                2685.05 |
| 26.      | Rajasthan               | 123000          |    307500 |                               15616.3  |
| 27.      | Sikkim                  |   3000          |      7500 |                                1848.88 |
| 28.      | Tamil Nadu              |   8240          |     15600 |                                2274.35 |
| 29.      | Telangana               |  13800          |     34500 |                                2369.78 |
| 30.      | Tripura                 |   1000          |      2500 |                                 687.05 |
| 31.      | Uttar Pradesh           |  78580          |     56000 |                               14347.2  |
| 32.      | Uttarakhand             | 140540          |    224250 |                               39780.3  |
| 33.      | West Bengal             |   2400          |      6000 |                                1537.26 |
| 34.      | Daman Diu & Dadar Nagar |  11100          |     27750 |                                1235.55 |
| 35       | Andaman & Nicobar       |   1360          |      3400 |                                 130    |
| 36       | Chandigarh              |   1300          |      3250 |                                  77.42 |
|          | Total                   |      1.1857e+06 |   1619200 |                              180477    |

Note : Total fund release Rs 1854.01 crore (including Rs 1804.77 Crore to States/UTs & Rs. 49.24 Crore for other expenses)

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