Consumers are embracing organic food

 Consumers are embracing organic food

Consumers are confident that organic agricultural produce produced in the villages is healthy and nutritious. However, the question of whether the food products being bought and sold in the market as organic, local and pesticide-free are truly organic, local and pesticide-free remains unanswered.

Consumers are losing faith in organic food products because there is a lack of adulteration and certification in the market.

Agricultural experts said that it is necessary to ensure that chemical fertilizers and pesticides are not used to certify organic.

The government has been suggested to implement an organic certification and monitoring system.

12 Ashad, Kathmandu. Kusum Dhakal from Babarmahal, the federal capital, Kathmandu, paid a high price for Jumla organic beans from a shop selling ‘organic’ food products nearby and took them home. However, when she cooked them, the beans were not cooked properly. After that, Dhakal felt that she had been cheated in the name of organic.

‘I have eaten jumli beans before, and when cooked by mixing them with lentils, they were delicious and the taste was just as sweet,’ Dhakal told Online News. ‘When you look at them, they were long, black grains. It took a long time to cook and didn’t taste that much when eaten. It seems like they sold them in the name of organic.’

Similarly, Samjhana Duwal bought honey from a mart in Lalitpur that was being sold as organic. However, she was not convinced that the taste of the honey was organic.

‘The mart owner said that it was organic honey from the village brought from Dhading, there is no doubt about it, it is very tasty,’ she said. ‘Later, when I ate it, it tasted exactly like sugar. After a week, it had lumps like sugar.’

After that, Duwal has lost faith in shops that are opened as organic.

Why are consumers regretting organic?

How can those goods and products that are widely advertised in the name of local products and sold without proof of being local be local? How can we believe that such goods are local without any basis? How can we believe that they are organic when pesticide-free vegetables and food products are not available in the market?

Dhakal and Duwal are representative consumers who are excitedly buying organic food products and regretting it.

Nowadays, there is a rush to open organic shops and marts in the streets and squares of big and small cities of the country. Similarly, there is a ‘trend’ among consumers to buy organic food products. They do not hesitate to pay a lot of money to buy organic food when it is said to be organic.

Recently, health-conscious consumers have been attracted to organic and local products after pesticides have been found in the market.

They are confident that organic agricultural products produced in the villages are healthy and nutritious. However, the question of whether the food products being bought and sold in the market as organic, local and pesticide-free is truly organic, local and pesticide-free remains unanswered.

Consumers seem to be in a dilemma after finding that the food products purchased in the name of organic, while being health conscious, taste different. Currently, there is even a debate going on in the name of organic and local.

From grocery stores operating in the market to large stores, marts and super stores, daily necessities are being sold in the name of organic.

Traders who understand what attracts consumers and how business can grow rapidly have put up organic products in marts, supermarkets and other small and large shops under the name of organic, ranging from vegetables, green vegetables, fruits to edible oil, pulses, nuts, rice, millet, phapar flour, corn husks and other food items.

Not only this, many traders have been promoting organic products on social media by specifying the name of the place and saying 'product of such and such place'. They have also been selling them through online platforms along with 'organic food shops'.

If you walk around the streets of the city, you can see names like 'Gaunghar Organic Shop', 'Nepal Organic House', 'Organic Food Store', 'Kathmandu Organic', 'Gaungle Organic Shop', 'Urwar Organic' and others.

How can those goods and products that are widely advertised in the name of local products and sold without proof of being local be local? How can we believe that such goods are local without any basis? How can we believe that they are organic when pesticide-free vegetables and food products are not available in the market? No one can even answer questions like these.

Traders in such food products have self-declared themselves as organic.

Are the foods that are said to be organic really organic?

Are all the beans sold in every street of the city as Jumla beans in the name of organic from Jumla? Are the beans that are sold in every shop in the streets and squares of the Kathmandu Valley produced in Jumla?

Even now, small to large restaurants and star hotels in the city include Jumla beans on their ‘menu’ as Jumla beans. Is it true that beans were produced in Jumla so that they could be sold indiscriminately? Who will answer this question?

Even the seeds of indigenous crops are being destroyed and seeds for cultivation have to be imported from outside. Even when talking about beans produced in Jumla, businessmen say that only a small amount is consumed in the district and enters Kathmandu. According to the information they have given, it is understood that there is widespread adulteration in indigenous and organic food products.

‘It is not organic because it is from one’s own field!’

Amrit Kumari Magar, in Kathmandu Metropolitan City-11 Kapan, said ‘Solukhumbu-Jantarkhani-Okhaldhunga Organic Food She has opened a shop called ‘Nna Shop’. She has been running an organic food shop for five months.

For agricultural produce to be organic, it must be produced from natural medicines, organic fertilizers, and indigenous seeds, and chemical fertilizers and pesticides must not be used.

In her shop, you can buy corn cobs, wheat, beans, millet flour, urad dal, soybeans, Lhotse potatoes, garlic, timur, onions, chapi, and jimbu grown in the Himalayan region, among other items.

Not all of these food items sold as organic are certified. She said that she sells items produced in her own village.

‘We produce the crops ourselves in our fields, that’s why it’s called organic,’ said Magar. ‘Everyone in the village produces at home. We have started selling the excess after keeping as much as we need.’

She said that she understood that ‘crops produced without any pesticides’ are organic. ‘We do not use pesticides in the products we produce,’ she said. ‘We also sell the food that comes from the end as organic based on trust. We operate on trust.’

She said that the food items being sold as organic are seasonal.

How much do organic food items cost?

Most of the organic shops that have opened in Kathmandu seem to sell them as products of Karnali. The food items sold in such shops have to be bought at a slightly higher price. The price of beans in those shops ranges from 300 to 330 rupees per kilo.

The price of beans and lentils is 300 to 350 rupees per kilogram, millet flour 150 to 160, corn flour 110 to 130, barley flour 180 to 200, and sorghum flour 180 to 200.

These prices vary from organic shop to organic shop.

Shobha Timalsina from Kavre has been opening a grocery shop in Buddhanagar for four months. She sells soybeans, millet flour, sorghum flour, corn husks, wheat husks, barley husks, beans, and beans among other food items.

She said that the food she sells is sold as local rather than organic. ‘Food produced in the village is called local rather than organic,’ she said. ‘Food collectors bring food to our shop. Those who bring it also bring it as local. We sell them with confidence.’

She said that she started selling locally produced foods because they are healthier and contain more nutrients than imported ones.

In her shop, corn flour can be purchased for 90 rupees per kilogram, millet flour for 130 rupees, phapar flour for 220 rupees, and wheat flour for 100 rupees. Similarly, she said that chayakhla costs 120 to 200 rupees per kilogram.

What kind of food is considered organic?

Agricultural experts say that it is not possible to be sure that the food products sold in the market under the name of organic are organic. According to them, it is not possible to claim that they are organic unless they are certified.

For agricultural produce to be organic, it must be produced from natural medicines, organic fertilizers, and indigenous seeds and chemical fertilizers and pesticides have not been used.

Experts say that food products produced without the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides can be found only in small quantities.

Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, Dr. Ramkrishna Shrestha, says that no product can be called organic unless it is certified.

The government has formulated organic certification criteria. He says that only those who have fulfilled those certification criteria can be given organic certification.

“Products that meet the organic certification criteria are called organic,” he says. “If pesticides are found in the product, it is not an organic product.”

According to him, an expensive fee has to be paid to get organic certification. For that, the method and process of organic production must be completed in the crop.

‘The farmer who produces the crop should keep records of where the seeds were brought from, whether the seeds are from organic sources or not, what kind of field they were planted in, whether pesticides were used in the field before,’ says agricultural expert Shrestha. ‘Only if that record is tested by an agricultural inspector and is correct, it is certified organic.’

According to him, standard certification is not required for the domestic market at present. However, since its quality and quantity of pesticides are all required for export, organic certification is required to know whether it is organic or not.

A somewhat easier way to do this testing is a participatory quality control system. ‘In this, the community monitors each other, to see whether one farmer followed the guidelines while producing for another farmer,’ he says. ‘In particular, the guidelines are to be made jointly by the community, consumers, and experts.’

In this too, the inspectors test it. However, he says that it cannot be called completely organic.

Next, there is an internal control system. Third, he says that licensed organizations will certify.

Recently, consumers have become more health conscious, so they are more attracted to organic products.

Recently, agriculture has been viewed only as a business, which has led to various problems. He suggests that agriculture should be viewed in terms of food security, nutritional security, independence and self-reliance.

Since there is a crisis of trust now, municipalities should take technicians under their supervision and conduct monitoring and inspection from time to time He says that it can.

‘Since the municipality has full authority, it can closely monitor its farmers. If the farmer has not used chemical pesticides in his produce, then if the municipality’s logo is given on the basis of general monitoring and it is said that ‘chemical pesticides have not been used in this product’, then we can all eat that product with confidence,’ says Dr. Shrestha.

Another way to protect consumers from being cheated in organic products is digital technology. He suggests that a QR system should be installed on products everywhere. Through the QR system, consumers will know where the product is and how it was produced, and the possibility of being cheated will be reduced, he says.

Organic certification should be done by the government: Golyan

Pawan Golyan, chairman of the Golyan Group, which has been promoting organic food, says that the Kathmandu and Lalitpur Metropolitan Cities should allow vegetables, fruits and food to enter here only after testing them for pesticides.

He says that the government should inspect the shops that have opened in the Kathmandu Valley as organic to see if they are really organic.

“The government should inspect and certify the organic products sold by this shop,” he says. “It is necessary to monitor the amount of pesticides used in the products produced locally and whether they are edible or not.”

According to him, only a small amount of completely organic food products are produced without using any pesticides. And, their prices also become expensive.