CCFI alleges official data forgery on organic farming

The Crop Care Federation of India (CCFI), the apex body of the agrochemicals industry, has in a letter to the prime minister alleged data forgery by the commerce and agriculture ministries on organic farming in the country.

Highlighting indicators of "massive fraud and data manipulation" across India, including states, CCFI wrote last week to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's office seeking a full investigation into the alleged fraud by government departments.

The letter alleges that data on organic farming released by the National Project on Organic Farming (NPOF) smacked of "deep and widespread manipulation".

NPOF, a centrally-run scheme under the environment ministry to encourage and promote development of organic agriculture in India, completed a decade of its existence this month.

Citing the instance of data on Delhi, which has a total geographical area of around 148,000 hectares, the letter points to the NPOF data as showing that over 100,000 hectare of the capital's area was brought under organic farming.

CCFI said that considering Delhi's population and spread of residential areas, the figures lack credibility especially when the data shows that the area under organic farming fell to just 58 hectares the very next year.

The official data shows that while in 2010-11, 266 hectares (ha) of land was under organic farming in Delhi, it soared to about 100,000 ha the next year. However, during this period, organic production fell from 2,172 tonnes to 0.01 tonnes, CCFI said.

"Isn't this a glaring evidence of data manipulation," CCFI asked in the letter.

Regarding Odisha, CCFI noted that the organic production in the state "zoomed from a mere 62,391 tonnes to over 29 million tonnes" in three years, and demanded that government departments "must explain the magic formula behind this".

The final observation by the industrial body showed that the data for Uttar Pradesh had "disconnect between area and production" in every financial year.

"It is extremely rare for data fraud to exist without hidden corruption while managing huge budgeted grants and subsidies. We seek civil and criminal action besides administrative action against those found guilty," CCFI chairman Rajju Shroff wrote.

In this connection, an agriculture ministry source told IANS that for every hectare of organic frming, it was providing a subsidy of around Rs.10,000.