Why organic is not in your shopping cart
New Delhi: Taste this one. I bet you would have never eaten anything like this before," Dilip Patidar, a farmer from Mandsaur district in Madhya Pradesh, told this reporter during a recent visit. Then he plucked an okra, bhindi in vernacular, and offered it for tasting.
It was tender and crunchy, with a hint of sweetness. “This entire plot is for vegetables grown for our own kitchen. We do not use fertilizers or medicines while growing them," the farmer said.
By medicines, he meant pesticides. This is a common practice among farmers. They often grow their own food, be it grains or vegetables, in a separate plot and apply little or no chemical fertilizers and zero pesticides.
The reason? Most consider what they sell in the markets as harmful for health, laced with chemical residues. But most consumers, except a minority, seem blissfully unaware of what goes into their food. Cauliflowers dunked in chemicals to make them sparkling white; bottle gourds pumped with growth hormones to make them grow bigger; heavy sprays of pesticides on okra and brinjal, which are cooked unpeeled.
Off-season vegetables often have a higher chemical load, farmers say. They use more pesticide to protect off-season vegetables: because those sell at a premium and growing costs are higher. Consumer preference for cheaper food is one reason why the market for organic, that is food grown without chemical fertilizers and pesticides, is miniscule in India, food companies complain.
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