Organic Certification and marketing

At present in India the growing demand for organic produce is gradually increasing and consumers are looking for the certified products for trusting quality of organic produce. At present in India two types of certification system exists namely 1. Third Party certification (NPOP) system which is governed by APEDA, Ministry of Commerce which is mainly focused for export purpose and 2. PGS-INDIA certification system.

PGS-India is governed by Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare mainly focused for local / domestic market purpose. The third party certification bears high fees and more documentation as a result small and marginal farmers are not able to offer for certification. To make it more easy, affordable and simplest system of certification which can be accessible by more number of small and marginal farmers to adopt certification and further sale in domestic market, Participatory Guarantee System (PGS)-INDIA organic certification system was launched in 2011 by Department of Agriculture and Cooperation & Farmers Welfare, Government of India, it is an alternative to Third party (NPOP) certification system. The programme is implemented mainly through National Centre of Organic Farming (NCOF), Ghaziabad and its five Regional Centres (Ghaziabad (HQ), Bangalore, Nagpur, Bhubaneswar, Imphal, as Zonal Councils. NCOF is a PGS-INDIA Secretariat of the PGS-INDIA System, and Director, NCOF as the Executive Secretary and has to play an important role in implementation of all activities of PGS- INDIA programme as per the PGS guidelines.