Tamil Nadu

Organic food holding its own

Photo: K. Pichumani

Organic vegetables on sale at Anna Nagar, Chennai.

If people are watching their wallets in a time of rising prices, they are not going to shell out even more for expensive items such as organic products, right? Wrong, say farmers and retailers.

“Once you have tasted organic rice, you are not going to eat anything else. People are more worried about their health than their wealth,” says R. Ranganathan, president of the state Organic Farmers Association, which has a membership of 2,000 farmers. It also runs an organic Sunday market near Hotel Peninsula in T. Nagar. “Our 300-odd regular customers continue to come.”

Ramesh Rangamani, who owns an organic shop named N Stores in Mylapore, agrees. “Yes, you pay a little more for organic food. But think of how much you save in doctors’ bills, because organic food is healthier. It should be treated as a preventive cost,” he says.

Organic products at his shop are 25 per cent higher than normal products. Rice, for example, costs at least Rs. 40 per kg. He agrees that volumes have slipped slightly in the past few months as inflation takes its toll, but insists that his customer list is actually growing. “They may say, let’s have organic rice only twice a week, instead of six times a week, but they will still buy it.”

On the cost front as well, organic farmers are insulated from some of the impact of inflation. “Fertilizer costs have gone up, and that is bad for regular farmers. But we use manure produced on our own farms. Our input costs are actually lower,” says A. Ambalavanan, of Anna Organic Farms in Nagapattinam. Apart from growing paddy, he also has fish in ponds in his paddy fields. The silt taken from a 30-cent fishpond can then be used as fertilizer for a one hectare field.

But problems arise in other areas, notably transport. “For local products such as bananas or rice, it is not so bad. But organic carrots, beetroot, cauliflower all come from a further distance, and their prices have shot up with the fuel price hike,” says Mr. Ranganathan, who has his own 15-acre organic farm in Mayiladuthurai.

Often, the quantities of organic products are not large, so the farmers cannot take advantage of economies of scale.

“Our regular customers want everything organic, even their mustard or chillis. We have to source it from Kerala or Andhra,” he says. P.B. Mukundan, a dairy farmer near Chengalpattu finds that labour is another rising cost. He has 40 cows and sells milk, ghee and curds, but plans to set up an organic vegetable farm as well. “Setting up an organic farm is very labour-intensive in the initial stages. It needs soil preparation without chemicals, biomass must be prepared, and there are few workers,” he says.

He blames the government for not providing concrete support to organic farmers. “There is a subsidy on urea, but what is there for us,” he asks. “We need native seeds for organic farming, but the government is a spokesman for hybrid seeds only.”

It’s not an easy time for organic farmers, but they’re sustained by the belief that their healthier products will eventually win through.

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