Brief notes on the World Organic Food Market

The concept of food quality has changed during the recent years; increasing number of consumers in developed countries and developing countries are becoming more health conscious.

They have been spending on greener, healthy and natural food products. The total organically managed area is more than 22 million hectare worldwide and the interest in organic agriculture is emerging in many countries.

The international markets for organic foods are expanding especially in USA, Europe and Japan. The organic products fold in global markets is dried fruits and nuts, processed fruits and vegetables, cocoa, spices, coffee, tea, sugarcane, cotton etc.

Looking at the global demand of organic products, International Federation for Organic Movement (IFOAM), European Economic Committee (EEC), CODEX Alimentarius (USA) etc. have set a series of guidelines on organic farming.

India Can Lead

Our country is uniquely placed for organic cultivation due to various agro-climatic regions for production of several potential crops in demand. Being a low chemical fertilizer consuming country especially in the rain-fed area, Northeastern and Hill States, India has good opportunity to take a production of organic food for export and domestic use.

IFOAM Survey 2003 has indicated that India has about 41000 hectares of land under organic farming and this area is only 0.03 per cent of the total agricultural land in India and 0.18 per cent in respect of global organic area, which is 22 million hectares.

On the basis of the demand, India has already initiated export marketing of organic rice, organic wheat, organic pulses, organic cotton, organic spices, organic vanilla, organic tea, organic coffee, organic fruits, organic cashew, organic honey etc.

Changes Caused by Overgrazing

Overgrazing has become an ecological menace today. Continuous selective grazing by animals causes palatable and nutritious grass to be replaced by less palatable and inferior ones.

Areas have been reported to be invading by many unwanted bushes and weeds. Damage is also caused due to trampling of soil by the grazing cattle, which not only kills young vegetation but also reduces soil aeration, the size and status of grasslands in the country has become degraded and present biotic pressures have never spared any opportunity for these grasslands to recuperate and raise to higher productivity levels.

Overgrazing impedes both natural and artificial regeneration and significantly alters the composition and age class distribution of forests. Bamboo forests in India have largely disappeared due to gregarious flowering and subsequent grazing and browsing.

Regeneration of Sal and Oak in the Kumaun Himalaya in Uttaranchal has suffered adversely due to overgrazing. Nearly 13 to 15 per cent of the total livestock population in the year 1972 depended on forests for grazing. In 1987, over 90 million animals grazed in forests, representing about 20 per cent of the estimated livestock population.

The dependence on forests for fodder has, therefore, been continuously increasing over the past years, not only in terms of increased livestock population, but also in terms of greater proportion of animals grazing in forests.

Fodder Scenario

Indian livestock is fed on different feeding materials including grass, tree leaves, agricultural residues and cultivated green fodder. However, there is no concept of a ‘balanced diet’ and or optimum fodder mix’ for the animals, and consumption generally depends on the availability of a given material at a given time.

The main feeding systems in the country are based on various combinations of the following: (i) crop residues and stubbles, (ii) grazing or cut fodder on community lands and other grasslands, including strips along roads, railways and canals and along field margins, (iii) grazing inside forests and along forest margins, (iv) cultivated green fodder, (v) leaf fodder by way of lopping and browsing, and (vi) concentrates, commonly used as an additive to the normal feed of livestock.

The current total estimated bovine population of the country stands at about 470 million, with a fodder requirement of over 1,072 million tonnes, of which nearly 52 per cent is required by cattle alone. Ironically, it is this very category of livestock that constitutes the biggest proportion of unproductive animal heads in the country.

As against this incredibly high quantity of fodder requirement, the supply stands at a poor 50 per cent of the demand. The source-wise supply of fodder in the country is as follows:

Grass: 200 million tonnes (177 million tonnes from forests and 23 million tonnes from grasslands outside forests).

Agricultural Residue and Weeds: 290 million tonnes

Leaf Fodder: 14 million tonnes

Cultivated Fodder: 66 million tonnes

Thus, the total supply of fodder from all possible sources (except concentrates) is only about 570 million tonnes. Of this, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh together contribute nearly 40 per cent of the fodder deficit in the country. In Uttar Pradesh alone, the gap between the demand and supply of fodder is about 92 million tonnes.

However, in most of the northeastern states, the situation is much better. It would be interesting to note that the forest cover density in the northeastern region is the highest in India, being nearly 65 per cent of the geographical area of the region, which is more or less equal to the 66 per cent forest cover density envisaged by the National Forest Policy, 1988 for hilly areas.

The additional area that would be required to meet the fodder deficit of 502 million tonnes, at the all India level, amounts to almost 75 per cent of the geographical area of the country.

Conversely, the present supply of fodder, even after allowing for extensive grazing and lopping, can feed only about half the present livestock population.

It also follows from this that since the production of agricultural residues and cultivated fodder connote increase significantly at a given point of time; much of the fodder deficit is met by grasslands, both within and outside forests, as well as tree leaf-fodder. Hence apart from extensive grazing and lopping, there is tremendous overgrazing of grasslands and over-lopping of trees.

If the gap between the requirement and supply of fodder in the country has caused overgrazing on the one hand, it has also left livestock to suffer from malnutrition, resulting in sub-optimum level of animal production.

The most obvious answer to the grazing menace is a drastic reduction in the country’s livestock population.

It is not very uncommon to find a significant number of unproductive cattle with every family engaged in livestock rearing. Unproductive cattle do not receive much care and attention from their owners and are, by and large, left to themselves for open grazing in forests and village common lands. This is a common air city street.

A comprehensive grazing policy, in accordance with the various national forest policies, needs close attention. Free and uncontrolled grazing, by way of rights and concessions, has cost the nation greatly.

It is high time that a National Grazing Policy be evolved to deal with issues like grazing trees, rotational grazing, forest protection, the problem of migratory grazing etc. In fact, grazing should be an essential concern and an important input to the planned energy development of the country.