MEDICINAL AND AROMATIC CROPS (2+1)

Organic certification

As the public becomes increasingly concerned about the negative effects of industrial and high input intensive agriculture on the environment and on their health, the demand for safe food is increasing day by day. In this context, organic horticulture offers a bright light in the troubled future of farming community by providing an economically and environmentally healthy alternative for their survival. Now organic horticulture is experiencing rapid worldwide growth through the creative energy of thousands of grassroots organizations, farmers and traders.

The historical data on organic farming indicated that, it was started in 1924 with a biodynamic concept and the pioneers gave different names. The global development of organic farming is reflected by International Federation for Organic Agriculture Movement (IFOAM), during 1972 and it now crossed with a membership of more than 200 organizations from 130 countries. Australia is the absolute organic boom country having more than 10% of the agricultural area under organic farming. Switzerland accounts for 14% area and Denmark for 35%. There is a very good awareness among the peoples of developed countries and now all are in the way to shift from inorganic to organic farming practices.

Organic certification for medicinal plants
The reports on organic agriculture showed that, most of the farming communities from the developed countries have already switched over to organic farming system and now having organic produces of many crops and allied activities. Now the organic growers were in the stage of selling their products with premium prices through some measures. In this context, organic certification becomes an important and inevitable step to be implemented to sell their products in the domestic or in global market.

Organic certification in Horticulture especially in medicinal plants provides transparency in certification and improves the images of organic agriculture. The organic certification by any agency includes the following programmes:

i. Certification - Carried out by the certification manager
ii. Inspection - Done by inspection manager well trained in organic standards
iii. Adopting standards - Carried out by the quality control manager

The certification programs vary with country or regions and the certification label is very particular to the country. All the standard used in certification was developed early by IFOAM and is reviewed every two years by the General Assembly of IFOAM. IFOAM has established an accreditation programme for supervising the international trade of organic products.