SRINAGAR: The Directorate of Agriculture, Kashmir, has been authorized as the Regional Council for PGS India Program which will help the farmers to get their organic produce certified ensuring them good marketing opportunities outside Jammu and Kashmir.
Speaking about this authorization, Additional Chief Secretary (ACS), Agriculture Production Department, Atal Dulloo, said that this is a welcome development and its interventions would pave the way for Organic Certification of Agricultural Produce of the farmers. This would play a key role in the effective implementation of projects related to organic certification enabling holistic development of the Agriculture sector in J&K.
The National Centre for Natural and Organic Farming in its meeting of the National Executive Committee of PGS India has authorized the Directorate of Agriculture, Kashmir as the Regional Council for PGS India Program.
Pertinent to mention, Regional Council (RC) is ideally floated by State agencies, existing NGOs, Organic Certification service providers of Central and State Governments, or any other agency (producers, consumers, retailers, traders, and Societies / Gram panchayats/farmer, etc.,).
Regional Council is an agency authorized by PGS-NAC to coordinate, monitor, and approve certification decisions of Local Group under the PGS-India organic Guarantee programme.
Regional Council will impart necessary training and support to existing and new local groups in procedures and paperwork necessary for each farmer’s organic guarantee. It would also translate and print PGS paperwork in the local language. It would also register local groups and issue user IDs and passwords for data uploading on the PGS India website. Facilitation of local groups in data uploading on the PGS website.
The Regional Council would confirm that the Local Group Summary Worksheet, listing all the farms that are to be Certified Organic, is complete and was conscientiously maintained by the group.
