Patna: The Bihar State Seed and Organic Certification Agency (BSSOCA) has set up a facility to educate tillers in organic farming at a government agriculture farm at Fatuha, around 20km east of Patna.
The state government has been promoting organic farming in a big way in its third agricultural roadmap, unveiled in November last year and which would be in operation till 2021-2022.
Organic farming is now practised on 2,500 acres in the districts along the banks of the Ganga and along some national highways. The third agricultural roadmap talks of bringing 25,000 acres under organic farming in 2018-19. It aims to bring 35,000 acres, 45,000 acres and 50,000 acres under organic farming in 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22, respectively.
"At present, we are organising farmers' exposure visit to the organic model farm in Fatuha and so far, eight such groups from Patna and six from Nalanda have visited the facility," said agriculture minister Prem Kumar.
Sharing details about the initiative, BSSOCA director Venkatesh Singh said farmers coming to this farm get to know a lot of things, including vermi-compost production, use and making of waste decomposer and farming of green manure, among others. "They are shown that how organic farming of vegetables and maize had been carried out and what is being done to produce organic paddy this Kharif season," added Singh.
The farmers are also being given a waste decomposer free during their visit.
The BSSOCA said emphasis was being laid to bring farmers from the organic corridor area to the farm but those from many other areas too were visiting the facility.
Special organic corridors are being developed in the state to promote organic farming and in the previous fiscal (2017-18), it had been launched in villages in Patna, Nalanda, Bhagalpur, Vaishali, Samastipur, Begusarai, Lakhisarai, Khagaria and Munger districts and some located along Daniawan-Biharsharif road.
In the current fiscal, it is being extended to villages of Buxar, Bhojpur, Rohtas, Kaimur, Gaya and Aurangabad districts to bring 25,000 acres under organic farming.
