the organic food scenario in india

in spite of increasing awareness about the ill effects of chemically grown crops and rising demand for organic produce by the educated classes, there still are a multitude of issues keeping the organic food movement in India from taking off like it should.

our aim here is to be able to tackle each of them, one by one.

1 availability. 
Even though dry organic foods like pulses, wheat, rice and spices have a significant presence in most good malls and grocery stores in the cities, the availability of fresh green vegetables and fruits are still a bit of a challenge in most corners. There are shops that exist, but for most city dwellers, it’s still a bit of a treck to travel large distances for their weekly veggies.

 2 pricing. 
Organic produce is going to be marginally more expensive than chemically grown food until it becomes the primary method of food production. As awareness increases, this can be a distinct possibility.

and if we do the math, look at the larger picture and intelligently reconfigure our spending priorities, it can be made very very affordable. Especially if you factor in the rising costs of healthcare and medicines, investing in organic food turns out to be a pretty inexpensive option.

for the record, the same people that tend to say organic food is expensive dont blink before paying 100 rupees for a cup of instant coffee, 200 rupees for a burger, and 500 rupees for an average eat-out.

3 perceptions and psychologal barriers. 
organic food is perceived by a small segment as elitist, only the intelligentsia are into it, and therefore, not for common people like us.

this is our biggest and foremost psychological barrier. If being conscious about your health is the domain of the elite, what is the prerogative of the masses? Spending many times that money at hospitals? We beg to disagree there.

a small minority even considers it a fad, and a western influence.

Needless to say, the converse is more true. Chemical farming can be called a foreign influence, our grandparents only ate organic. Eating chemicals and synthetic poisons were never the building blocks of Indian culture. 

and finally, the advertising generated mentality of the younger generation had been to think it is cool to not care about what you are eating. All the cool people in junk food ads seem to live healthy, happening lives.This thankfully is fast changing, and younger people are seeing beyond big money advertising and realising that it is cooler to eat organic - it only shows that you care about yourself and your environment.