Shillong: Defending the Meghalaya Cabinet’s decision to lift the ban on chemical fertilisers despite the state’s push for organic farming, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Friday said the government is adopting a “just transition” approach to ensure farmers’ livelihoods are not affected.
Responding to questions on the apparent contradiction between promoting organic farming and allowing the use of chemical fertilisers, Sangma said the shift to organic agriculture cannot happen overnight.
“We call it a just transition. When we move from one practice to another, you cannot simply flip a coin and expect everything to change tomorrow. It has to be a gradual process,” he said.
The Chief Minister said farming practices that have been followed for decades cannot be stopped immediately, as doing so could affect the livelihoods of thousands of farmers.
“If you suddenly stop something that people have depended on for years, you potentially harm their livelihoods and the way they live,” he said.
Sangma reiterated that the government’s long-term goal remains to make Meghalaya a fully organic state, but said the transition would take time and require careful planning.
“We may set targets to achieve certain milestones in three years, five years or even ten years. Our objective is clear that in the coming decades, we want Meghalaya to be 100 per cent organic,” he said.
He said the transition depends on several factors, including increasing the production of organic fertilisers, bringing down their cost, creating better markets for organic produce and improving logistics from farms to consumers.
“Organic farming is not only about replacing chemical fertilisers. The entire ecosystem has to be ready, including production, pricing, marketing and transportation,” he said.
Sangma added that these challenges make it impractical to immediately replace conventional farming practices with organic methods.
“It is not possible to stop one system today and expect another to begin tomorrow. The transition has to happen in a phased manner,” he said.
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