Uttarakhand: Organic Farming Village On Paper Yet To Receive Training

The Uttarakhand government is yet to begun farmers training in organic farming but has already declared it an organic farming village.

Most people in Uttarakhand’s Bijapur rely on farming for sustenance. Since it is surrounded by forests on all four sides, people there and in the neighbouring villages do not have adequate access to water.

Due to insufficient water for farming, the government planned to train villagers in organic farming. But let alone training, nobody from the government even visited the village to enumerate the benefits of organic farming, and the government still declared it an organic village.

The villagers say that they aim to make not just their village but the entire state organic. For this, they have resolved to engage in organic farming. But training by the government has not yet begun.

Meanwhile, government officials say that this is a traditional agricultural scheme, under which two villages have been chosen for organic farming. Under the scheme, apart from making manure, farmers have been provided with other essential resources.

The soil is becoming hard due to the use of chemical fertilizers and poisonous insecticides because of which water absorption decreases, seeds do not stay in place and the crop suffers damage.

Keeping this in view, several efforts are being made to encourage organic farming but the pictures coming in from Bijapur once again reveal that the government only makes schemes and then forgets about them.