Greater Cochin Development Authority to discontinue organic farming

KOCHI: The Greater Cochin Development Authority which is the role model in organic farming for other civic agencies and government departments is slowly withdrawing from the novel initiative. After the exit of chairman N. Venugopal and Secretary R. Lalu, the new leadership is not keen on maintaining the farming programme. It is reliably learnt that a very senior official has informally asked the persons in charge of farming not to take it forward.

More than 500 plants of lady’s finger, paddy and more than 100 plantain trees which are organically cultivated are ready for harvesting. For the last couple of years, GCDA has been harvesting organic crops during Onam season and there was an encouraging response for the initiative from the public. “As the top officials are not interested, the organic farming programme will come to an end soon. They are not even keen on harvesting the vegetables planted during the former chairman’s term,” said sources at GCDA.

During the last couple of years, the GCDA as part of the green initiative harvested large quantities of vegetables including cool weather crops like cabbage and cauliflower. As part of the programme, the Authority used to distribute growbags for the public and conduct trade fairs during Onam and Vishu.