Principal Secretary, Agriculture Production and Farmers Welfare Department, Navin Kumar Choudhary on Wednesday chaired a meeting of State Seed Sub Committee at Civil Secretariat Srinagar regarding the formulation of nodal agency for certification of organic products in J&K.
After threadbare discussion over the need for creation of certification agency for organic products, Principal Secretary gave his approval for the creation of the agency. A notification to this end will be issued soon.
While giving outline of the agency, Navin Kumar Choudhary said that the agency is known as J&K Organic Products Certification Agency, Kashmir and J&K Organic Products Certification Agency Jammu. He said the agency will certify all the agriculture, horticulture and dairy organic products.
He further said that the agency will be headed by an Agro-Chemist, a Deputy Director rank officer, who will be assisted by at least one district level officer of Agriculture Department and one HDO with expertise in horticulture.
In this regard, he said, Govt will issue a notification giving legal sanctity to the agency. The agency will utilize the infrastructure of agriculture department and agriculture universities of both Kashmir and Jammu divisions. APEDA was nominated as central agency for building the capacity of newly created entities.
The Agency will adopt full process of organic certification as prescribed by National Programme for Organic Production.
It was given in the meeting that quarterly review of the functioning of the agency shall be held by Principal Secretary of AP&FWD.
It was also decided that both Directors of Agriculture department will identify at least six organic clusters each where these agencies will start working.