Farmers under the aegis of the Deccan Development Society on Tuesday opposed Food Safety and Standards Authority of India’s move to ban the sale of produce as organic unless certified by processes it has approved. The move, they said, would put lakhs of small farmers in distress. DDS director P.V. Satheesh said that several small farmers ‘by and large’ grow organic produce. The move to allow only the FSSAI to designate processes and bodies to validate the organic produce would be detrimental to the growth of small farmers. “Small farmers cannot afford chemicals. This is why their crops are organic,” he Mr. Satheesh added., adding that they cannot approach organic markets which are primarily urban and cater to the middle class.

He said that the Participatory Guarantee Systems Organic Council, of which DDS is a member, has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention in the issue.

The DDS has demanded that the PM stop the FSSAI from appropriating the right to decide who should be called organic.

Mogalamma, a farmer associated with DDS, said that they have monthly meetings to discuss the nuances of organic farming.

“We have a set process in place. Handing this over to someone else is unfair and unfortunate. Because we have been working on this for ten years. We can't hand it over to you," she said, adding that organic farming is 'ancestral knowledge'.