The cost of organic foods is one of the major reasons behind their low adoption rate among the masses. Why are they so expensive? And is it feasible to bring down their cost anytime soon?

If you shop regularly at the supermarkets for your grocery and other household provisions, you would have most likely seen that all things organic are priced way higher thantheir regular variants, whether it's food, toiletries, beauty products orwhathave you (see the above chart on the online retail prices of 500 gm beaten rice (poha) for organic and non-organic varieties). You would have most likely also noticed that the organic sections are almost always thinly populated compared to the general sections. It's obvious that for the large majority of people price concerns get the better of the stated benefits of organic foods such as purity and wholesomeness.

But what makes organic foods so expensive? At the National Trade FairOrganics and Millets 2017, YourStory spoke to a variety of stakeholders in the organic food market to understand the reasons whether the situation is going to change anytime soon.

Organic foods are difficult to grow as they need high involvement and more time to grow. Moreover, lower yields of such crops and poor supply (still developing) chain further increases the production cost. Post-harvest processing and handling of organic food is a costly affair since the risk of contamination by chemical fertilisers, pesticides, etc. from water and neighboring farms is high. One of the biggest hurdles to the adoption of organic farming is the high fee for registration, accreditation and certification to become organic farmers.

While some of the above reasons have existed for decades, however, the government, cooperative societies and companies are working together to increase the adoption of organic farming and consumption of organic food in India.

One such body is the Uttarakhand Organic Commodity Board (UOCB), which was formed in 2013 to promote and coordinate the dispersed organic activities for organic farming in the state. According to Pankaj Kumar of UOCB, the organisation has certified 1.5 lakh farmers (with an area of 45 lakh hectares) under organic farming. The UOCB incorporates the internal control system which allows producer associations or groups to practice group certification, thus lowering its cost of certification. In addition, they also provide inputs based on their research and subsidised tools (for harvesting, farming, etc).

Nowadays, organic foods may appear to be a lucrative market for many, but there weren't many organised players in early 2000s. One of them, 24 Mantra Organic, claims to be the market leader in the organic food category across India with almost two-thirds of market share. Today, the decade-and-a-half-old company works with 40,000 farmers on 245,000 hectares of land across the country on a contract basis. But it hasnt been easy for the company to get farmers on board to do organic farming. Sunil Poovaiyah, Business Head for Exclusive Stores in Karnataka, says,

One of our key objectives is to provide sustainable livelihood to farmers. We take care of the education of the children of our dedicated farmers, and also organise their health checkups.

The company couldnt make profits for first 3-4 years because of the investments but with increased market size and awareness, its gunning for soaring profits now.

Ravi K, CEO of Bangalore Urban, Bangalore Rural and Ramanagara Districts Regional Farmers Co-operative Union, has been involved with organic farming since 2004 but formed the cooperative only in November 2015. Branded as Organic Market Federation, Bangalore, the cooperative operates in 32 hoblis (a hobli is a cluster of adjoining villages administered together for tax and land tenure purposes). Each hobli has 100 hectares of land under organic farming and the members (organic farmers) are provided with the support to directly supply the produce to companies. This ensures shorter credit cycles and they get paid within 10-15 days.

According to a study jointly conducted by industry lobby Assocham and private research firm TechSci Research in 2016, pegged at $0.50 billion, the organic food market in India is estimated to jump to $1.36 billion by 2020. This will still account for less than 0.5 percent of the total agriculture market size of India. There are numerous bodies across the country working to reduce (if not remove completely) the hurdles in adopting organic farming.

With more research and favorable policies, it's hoped that the demand for organic food will not be driven by metros only. After all, we were practicing only organic farming before the 70s. And given its sustainable nature, a step towards organic food (and farming) is a step towards a sustainable future.

Till the price of all things organic comes closer to their non-organic counterparts, lets bridge this gap with the awareness about the organic way of living.

Read more from the original source:

A primer on what makes organic foods so expensive - YourStory.com

Forbes

Meditation for Manifesting Your Dreams--And Accomplishing Your Goals Forbes I don't believe in magic. But I believe in the power of positive intent. And I also believe if you're committed to accomplishing a goal, and are consistently looking for ways to advance this goal, and signals the world is supporting you in making it ...

Read more:

Meditation for Manifesting Your Dreams--And Accomplishing Your Goals - Forbes

Rose Gold, (still) 2017. SARA CWYNAR, COURTESY FOXY PRODUCTION

Why does harvest gold connote sad old appliance but rose gold say sexy new iPhone? Thats one question posed in the centerpiece of Sara Cwynars captivating new show at Foxy Production, a seven-minute film collage, with voice-over, whose subjects include, but arent limited to: consumerism, obsolescence, sexism, melamine dinnerware, brightly plumed parrots, and, for reasons that Ive yet to grok, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The tone of Cwynars movie mimics mid-twentieth-century educational filmsif they had been peppered with quotes from Wittgenstein and Merleau-Pontybut none of the footage is found. Cwynar shot it herself, on 16-mm. stock, not digital videoa crucial detail, given that one of her central subjects is film itself. (The exceptions to the rule arethe scenes in which Cwynar appears onscreen, a pretty blond woman identifiable by her telltale earrings, a tiny gold S and C, which were shot by somebody else.) Cwynar belongs to the same lineage of camera-minded conceptualists as Tacita Dean, who filmed the production of Kodaks last rolls of 16-mm. film on obsolete stock, and Christopher Williams, whose beautiful, if recondite, pictures make hay of commercial photo-studio conventions.

Above all, Cwynars film, which is titled Rose Gold, is a meditation on color. Cwynar is intimately acquainted with the vagaries of palettes: prior to earning her M.F.A. in photography at Yale, the Vancouver-born artist worked as a graphic designer, notably for the TimesMagazine. (Full disclosure: The New Yorker commissioned Cwynar to take the photographs for our 2015 Fiction Issue.) As her gimlet-eyed show, which also includes three series of photographs, makes vividly clear, color is a cultural construct. Consider an old box of crayons: in 1961, Crayola retired flesh and replaced it with the less Caucasian-centricpeach. As absorbing as her short movie is, the strongest part of Cwynars exhibition is a group of still pictures that pull back the veil on an obscure episode in the history of color film as it relates to capturing skin tones.

Tracy (Pantyhose), 2017.

Credit SARA CWYNAR, COURTESY FOXY PRODUCTION

The six pictures in question are portraits of the artists friend, Tracy, a beautiful young woman of Asian heritage, who poses in pink, red, and yellow outfits against backdrops of deep blue and green, wearing expressions that range from side-eyed disinterest to direct-at-the-lens gaze. In four of the pictures, Tracys image is partially hidden by arrangements of found snapshots, clippings from dictionaries, and nostalgic objectsan empty ring box, perfume bottles, womens nylons in a jumble of hues. The last detail is a clue to the secret history thats hinted at more directly in two other pictures, in which Tracy lounges against giant colorful grids, in lieu of cloth backdrops. They suggest the CMYK standard (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) used in match prints, which insure that the colors in a reproduced photograph are correct before it goes to press.

But from the mid-nineteen-fifties to the early seventies, Kodak supplied commercial photographers who bought its film with so-called Shirley cards, images of womenalways Caucasianthat were printed on card stock and used as the standard for lighting in studios. (Apocrypha has it that that the first woman whose image was used on the cards was a Kodak employee named Shirley.) The protocol was eventually updated to include black, Latina, and Asian modelsbut not for the same reasonsthatmade Crayola retire its flesh crayon. Rather, it was complaints from furniture manufacturers, frustrated that blond and dark woods were indistinguishable in advertisements, as well as from the candy industry, irate that milk- and dark-chocolate bars looked just the same. (For a deep dive into the subject, consult the Colour Balance Project of the Canadian scholar Lorna Roth.) In her portraits of Tracy, Cwynar performs a sly bit of color correction herself.

Sara Cwynars exhibition Rose Gold is on view at Foxy Production through May 14th.

See the original post:

An Artist's Meditation on Color Reveals a Secret History of Film - The New Yorker

Fadel Zeidan(Photo: Submitted)

For 4,500 years, practitioners of meditation have sworn it changed the way they felt.

But it's only been in the past decade or so that researchers have been able to use technologyto show how meditation can change the brain's activity and physiology.

"Clinicians, and people as a whole, have been skeptical of mindfulness because of a lack of objective evidence," said Fadel Zeidan, a researcher, assistant professor and director of the Brain Mechanisms of Pain and Health Laboratory at Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C.

But with improved neuroimaging, "it's something we can actually see," and that physical evidence makes doctors more likely to recommend it.

Zeidan, who is studying the use of mindfulness and guided meditation to manage pain, is one of several experts scheduled to present at the second annual MindfulnessTN symposium, 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday at the Knoxville Convention Center, 701 Henley St. Admission is $10, which goes to East Tennessee Children's Hospital. Students with valid IDs are admitted free.

Zeidan is particularly interested in whether people including those already addicted can reduce or eliminate their use of opioid drugs through mindfulness practices. He's done some small studies that indicate they can and is seeking grants for a large-scale controlled study. Meanwhile, he's partnered with Knoxville's Dr. James Choo of Pain Consultants of East Tennessee, who uses meditation with some of his patients.

Overall, people who were using opioid drugs, either for pain or medication-assisted addiction therapy, "reported using significantly less medication," Zeidan said.

Related:

Beyond pills: Treating pain without opioids

Town hall addresses pain management, addiction

Zeidan said his work focuses on "brief bouts" of meditation training, because he's working with people who might choose to take "take a pill, and in 30 minutes, start feeling some relief." Longer-term practice is necessary for large, more permanent changes, he said, but most people aren't interested in expending that effort until they see rewards.

"We can teach folks to self-regulate how they react to their pain, daily stressors and other life events," Zeidan said.

He said his research, performed over 16 years, has demonstrated thata change in perspective can have a "dramatic" impact on health,positivelyor negatively.

"When one learns how to utilize self to benefit health, they are less likely to catastrophize the experience of pain and become dependent on drugs," he said.

Other presenters at this year's symposium include East Tennessee Children's Hospital nurse practitioner Lorna Keeton;Norman Farb, University of Toronto,"Turn yourself in! A neuroscientific account of why mindfulness begins with the body";J. David Creswell, Carnegie Mellon University,"Pathways linking mindfulness training programs with health"; and Dave Vago, Vanderbilt University,"Mindfulness Research: Past, Present, and Future."

A panel discussion and question and answer session will close the event.

For information, seewww.mindfulnesstn.com.

Read or Share this story: http://knoxne.ws/2pjbdPW

Read this article:

Can meditation replace opioids? Presenter at MindfulnessTN says yes - Knoxville News Sentinel

Neil Gaimans 2001 novel American Gods has a fascinating premise: all that we believe in becomes real, and as we add to the pantheon of our self-created idols, the avatars of older beliefs fade into irrelevance until they decide to declare war against the new kids.

But left out of Gaimans tale is the God of the Bible and His Son.

The temptation to mess with that proved too great for the new TV version of the story.

On Sunday, April 30, Starz premieres an eight-episode adaptation of American Gods, from Michael Green (Kings, Heroes, Everwood) and Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies, Dead Like Me).

Ricky Whittle (The 100) stars as Shadow Moon, a prison inmate about to get out of jail and be reunited with his wife (Emily Browning). Tragedy intervenes, and hes released early.

He stumbles into the company of the enigmatic Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane), who hires him as a driver and bodyguard. They embark on a phantasmagoric road trip across America, meeting embodiments of ancient beliefs and modern obsessions, such as Technical Boy (Bruce Langley), Bilquis (Yetide Badaki), Mad Sweeney (Pablo Schreiber), Mr. World (Crispin Glover), Media (Gillian Anderson), Easter (Kristin Chenoweth) and Mr. Nancy (Orlando Jones).

Interspersed with this story are seemingly after four episodes, anyway random vignettes featuring new characters interacting with other avatars.

Much as with The Handmaids Tale, TV critics with politics on the brain are rushing to declare the series prescient and relevant and prophetic and whatnot, because of the notion that the old gods came over with immigrants to America. Well, yeah, but people taking old gods to new places has happenedall over the world, throughout human history.But, sure, this is a time like no other, in the age of Trump blah blah blah.

Jesus is indeed added in physical form intoGreen and Fullers take on Gaimans story. Now, there are a bunch of different Jesuses, of different ethnicities and races, and one of them is an illegal immigrant. I cant tell you if its incredibly offensive or not, since Jesus is mentioned, but not yet seen, in the four episodes Starz has made available for review.

Im pretty sure Im not going to find out, either, because thats four hours of my life Im not going to get back, and Im currently not in the mood to hand over any more precious time.

Among the biggest killers of good storytelling are self-indulgence, self-regard, wretched excess, an inability to get outside of ones own fixations, and the conscious or unconscious needto bend stories to make a political point.

Starzs American Gods could have been a satirical look at the self-inflicted and dangerous idolatry of our age, if only it could have gotten out of its own way.

Images: Courtesy Starz

Dont miss a thing: head over to my other home, as Social Media Manager atFamily Theater Productions; and check out FTPs Faith & Family Media Blog.

More here:

'American Gods': Messy, Meandering Meditation on Idolatry Misses the Mark - Patheos (blog)

Credit: Flickr/Darragh O Connor. Some rights reserved.

I like to say that India changed my life twice. The first time I was 24. An English major at the University of California, Berkeley, Id turned down a job offer from McKinsey Consulting in my senior yearI want to change the world, I said, and make music. But a few years of doggy-paddling at nonprofits and singing in cafes on weekends left me confused and disillusioned. Academically Id been an excessive over-achiever, sure that life was preparing me for big things. This couldnt be it, could itmy days governed by the geopolitics of cubicles and office gossip, with a brief respite for actual living? I was depressed, and needed something drastic to test my mettle. So I decided to travel around India alone. I couldnt say why, exactly. Only that the place drew me, and powerfully.

I crammed what I needed into a backpack and spent five happy months traveling and freelance writing my way across the subcontinent. Two months in, I found myself in muted overwhelm, desperate for reprieve. In the ancient city of Rishikesh, famous to westerners as the place where the Beatles met their Maharishi, I saw a flyer for a vipassana (or insight) meditation retreat. I took a taxi straight to the ashram, located on the Ganges four miles outside of the city and approximately 700 from Bodhgayawhere the Buddha attained enlightenment.

For ten days I sat in silence and stillness, ate vegetable mush for dinner, and focused on my breath. It wasnt long before strange and beautiful things began to happen. Insights alighted like doves, one after the other. I saw, for example, that I had never loved myself unconditionallyonly in reward for achievements. I saw that I was angry and scared, and that these things could, given loving attention, shift. I sat on the ashram roof and held debriefs with God. I found a quiet spot upriver and sang and danced. I was happy, and free.

On leaving, I committed to meditating every day. When I returned from India, I had a sense of purpose. I spent the next seven years organizing, singing in, and writing about the global justice movement, with regular times-out to attend vipassana meditation retreats. I applied my intemperate drive to rigorously and exhaustingly striving to transform the world and myself. Meaning had returned to life.

The second time I visited the subcontinent I was 33. I had just completed my Masters in Fine Arts in Fiction at the Iowa Writers Workshop, and Id received a Fulbright Scholarship to work on a novel in Varanasi, where Id spent a week nine years earlier. Varanasi is also a holy city on the Ganges. According to the scriptures, death here puts an end to the harrowing cycle of samsara, or reincarnation, and brings about total liberation. But modernity, in the form of rampant urban growth, has not been kind to the place: the streets are filled with barely-moving traffic, the sidewalks with crowds of people.

After a couple of weeks, strange things again began to happen. This time, however, they were different. I found myself assailed by a rising tide of anxiety. There had been some strong prior hints, but in Varanasi I careened right off the cliff Id unwittingly been skirting. My stomachwhich had survived the on-the-cheap vagaries of five continentsfell apart, and two courses of antibiotics couldnt put it back together again. I found a lump in my breast. I couldnt find an apartment. The fear just kept growing. I stopped sleeping and fell into a hole the likes of which Id never suspected existed inside me.

I dont know whats happening, I said over the phone to the Fulbright director in Delhi. This is so weird. I meditate every day. And Ive done, like, a whole month on silent retreat. I know my mind. That month, spent at the Insight Meditation Society three years earlier, had not been easy. Id say a full three weeks of it had been hellbut it was, in hindsight, the second circle kind of hell. This was the more like the ninth. He made soothing noises and suggested I see a therapist.

Over the following weeks I began to see the deep fracture in my life: most of my days had been dominated by drive and adrenaline, while I tended to the spirit by slamming on the brakes for compensatory periods of silence and stillness. I have an Indian friend who views meditation retreats as a kind of penance. Here in the west, we rush about achieving and consuming, she says, and then we go meditate to expiate our sins. As an activist, I may have been offering a radical critique of consumer culture, but I certainly wasnt immune to its hyperactivity.

The inability to restthe constant running, pushing and achievingwere a culturally-applauded sublimation of the fear and rage I wrestled with on retreat, and they took their physiological toll in the form of adrenal exhaustion. The fracture in my life was no more than a mirror of the fracture in my psyche, which had its roots, as I began to see, in events that had happened many years earlier.

In the end, I cut my Fulbright short and returned from India to navigate my way through a breakdown. It wasnt pretty. It felt as if everything good inside me had been tossed on one of Varanasis funeral pyresmy creativity, confidence, and capacity for happiness. Who was this petrified, tortured woman, this ghost of my former self? For months, I was so exhausted that getting dressed felt onerous. I had to scrape together all of my courage to go to the grocery store. I attended a few week-long retreats that were more or less extended encounters with unabated terror and self-loathing. And the five years since my return have resembled a drunken waltz: fall down and get back up, again and again, the falls growing gradually less paralyzing as I learned how to fall and how to relax both my body and my expectations.

I dont blame meditation for any of this. Indeed, it was a huge support in numerous ways, not least of which was the ingrained mental refrain to focus on the oatmeal on the stove, the fluttering leaves, or the breath in my bellyon what was present and actual rather than the fireball in my chest. And meditating alongside the terror certainly gave me some significant, if unasked-for, experience of my own mettle. Nonetheless, ultimately it wasnt enough to watch the madness, to greet it with awareness or even metta (loving kindness).

There has been much discussion in the media lately about the limits, and even the dangers, of mindfulness. There are stories of meditation inducing confusion and panic attacks, and of retreat experiences leading to depression and psychotic episodes. While these stories of psychological incapacitation are rare they do raise important questions. Western culture has bought selectively into Eastern practicethere are currently 700 mindfulness apps available and counting. So what to make of this reputed dark side? Does meditation have ominous powers?

Drawing from my own experience, I say no. Meditation does not wield dark esoteric powers, but rather draws away the veils covering existing darkness in our own psyches. These veils usually exist for good reason: they are the psyches brilliantly inventive answer to violation. Depending on ones history, meditation may be an insufficient response. Or it may be the wrong medicine entirely.

Theres an oft-repeated story of the Dalai Lamas first visit to the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts in 1979. In a meeting with western Buddhist teachers, he was asked about the phenomenon of self-hatred. Despite his translators efforts, he was baffled by the term. Buddhism has adapted to numerous cultures over 2,600 years, but in the west its only in its second generationbarely pubescent. It is still molding itself to the western mind. Western teachers are currently negotiating how to teach an integrative practice, one that incorporates communication and diversity, social justice and relationships.

And western Buddhists are just beginning to grapple with contemporary understandings of traumanot only the shock of individual experiences of war and abuse, but also the injuries of collective oppressions such as racism and homophobia. Suffice it to say that for any individual with a traumatized nervous system, sitting in silence and focusing attention on the body is not always the right response. In eliminating or minimizing external inputs, unconscious material rises to the fore. This is precisely why meditation is such a powerfully healing practiceand also why it can trigger a traumatic reaction. If meditation is a response to trauma, then it requires a very skillful teacher.

As for me, while I am grateful for meditation, it wasnt enough. I feel fortunate to have found other tools to help pry aside the darkness and expose what lay even deeper than the fear and pain: an original sense of joy, a spontaneous creativity, an integrated presence. I didnt want my dark night of the soul, and the truth is I wouldnt wish it on my worst enemy. But on stumbling my vertiginous way out I discovered myself happier than Id ever been. The breaking, Ive come to see, was a crucial part of the healingthe psyches radical stab in the direction of wholeness; a death in service of rebirth.

A friend recently suggested that I may have been better off never meditating or journeying to India. I disagree. Yes, I may have stayed stablebut I would still have been driven by what lay buried in my unconscious. Breakdown forced me to face it. I had no choice: I had to relinquish control. And perhaps thats where the greatest transformation is born.

More:

When meditation isn't enough - Open Democracy

Comments(0)

Hundreds braved the rain to see the crew of the HMS Enterprise exercise the freedom of Tiverton this weekend.

The Royal Navy vessel returned home to Plymouth after three years at sea on Tuesday, April 18, and her crew of more than 50 were joined by the Royal Marine Corps of Drums and members of Tiverton Sea Cadets in a parade through the town centre on Sunday, April 30.

Starting at Tiverton Pannier Market, the crew paraded with the Queen's Colour in full ceremonial uniform with swords and rifles fitted with bayonets. The Mayor of Tiverton, Councillor Steve Flaws also gave an inspection of the crew.

HMS Enterprise has been affiliated with Tiverton for her whole life in service, beginning when she was commissioned in October 2003. A part of this affiliation was the granting of the freedom of the city by the town council.

Cllr Flaws said: "What a great honour it is for me as mayor of Tiverton to welcome to our town the members of our adopted ship and the Royal Marine Band.

"A couple of weeks ago, I actually had the pleasure of visiting the ship in Plymouth and sailing down to Falmouth. It was a fabulous day out and one that I will always remember. During this trip I learnt about the important work the Royal Navy does to protect our shores and its humanitarian work across the globe. Specifically, I discovered that over the last few years, HMS Enterprise has rescued many thousands of refugees and has probably saved many of those people from drowning.

"I believe that we should all be proud of the work done by HMS Enterprise and I trust we will all continue to develop stronger links between the town and the ship. These wonderful events do not happen very often so I feel highly privileged that this has happened during my year as mayor."

Commanding Officer of the HMS Enterprise Philip Harper, who joined HMS Enterprise in November 2016 and has spent more than 25 years in the Royal Navy added: "I am humbled and honoured by the reception we have been given in Tiverton. My ship's company have homes all over the UK and indeed as far afield as New Zealand and the US, but for the ship herself, Tiverton represents home a home more fondly remembered for being visited so rarely.

"We owe a great debt of gratitude to the citizens of our great country, who keep the home fires burning and allow us to protect the nation's interests abroad, at range. And this beautiful county of Devon does more than its fair share it is home to half of the Royal Navy and most of the Royal Marines.For hundreds of years, Devon has supplied the best sailors in the world including Drake and Raleigh, and good a good many serving today in Enterprise.

"For today we thank the Mayor and the Town Council, and all those who have worked so hard to prepare. Most particularly we thank the people of Tiverton for their warm welcome and ongoing support. I'd also like to pay tribute to the Sea cadet Corps, led by Chief Petty Officer Mikki Chubb for all their good work with the young people of the town.

"Thank you Tiverton, and please go on making this town, county and country a place well worth coming home to."

Those attending the HMS Enterprise parade through Tiverton this weekend will be able to park for free.Mid Devon District Council announced that members of the...

HMS Enterprise's crew will be providing a spectacle in Tiverton next week when they exercise the freedom of the town.The Royal Navy vessel returned home to...

Budding NASA scientists fired dozens of rockets into the sky last week, thanks to the Heathcoat Challenge.Heathcoat Fabrics organised the event to celebrate...

Royal Marine Alexander Blackman, who shot dead a wounded Taliban fighter in Afghanistan, has praised his "wife in a million" as he spoke for the first...

See original here:

VIDEO: Royal Navy's HMS Enterprise crew excercise freedom of Tiverton with parade through town - Devon Live

bengaluru, Apr 29 Fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies including ITC and Britannia, today evinced interest in foraying into the business of organic food products and millets.

"Organic products are the future for package food products because more consumers are seeking better ingredients..

On behalf of MTR-foods/75179" target=_blank>MTR Foods, the company has committed to use more millets in their products and support this initiative," MTR CEO Sanjay Sharma said at the National Organic and Millets Trade Fair 2017 here.

National Head of Buying and Merchandising, Big Basket, Sheshukumar said, Big Basket is propagating use of organic products among consumers because it is difficult to find all organic products under one roof with the help of state government which is linking them with farmers directly.

"It is a daring step by government.. No directory was available, but this is a very good thing which will help us link with the farmers directly.. Big Basket is propagating the organic products to consumers," he said.

Agriculture Minister Krishna Byre Gowda, in the august company of retailers and FMCG companies, launched "Brand Siri Karnataka," which will ensure millets become rich man's saviour nationally and internationally.

The brand was selected keeping in mind the richness of millets to human health and wellness, he said.

Gowda also launched "Shresta Karnataka," a name selected keeping in mind the importance of organic farming practices to nature, environment and ecology.

"Siri Karnataka and Shreshta Karnataka will facilitate the organised marketing of these high quality food items," Gowda said.

"We will train farmer groups on grading, packing and quality aspects.. This is a big step towards 'From farmers to consumers' direct linkages," he added.

The brand name can be used only by those farmers who are certified or under the certification process, the Minister said.

"Only after three years (IC 1, IC 2, IC 3) are they certified fully organic.

Karnataka has the most stringent certification norms of all states," he added.

The farming federations of Karnataka, who engage in organic farming practices and the cultivation of millets, will be offered the usage of these brands to market their products and also earn better incomes through value added products that could be marketed under these brand names, Gowda said.

Next-Gen Food Startups, Big Organised and Progressive retailers can get in touch with the Organic cell running the programme, the minister added.

bengaluru, Apr 29 Fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies including ITC and Britannia, today evinced interest in foraying into the business of organic food products and millets.

"Organic products are the future for package food products because more consumers are seeking better ingredients..

On behalf of MTR-foods/75179" target=_blank>MTR Foods, the company has committed to use more millets in their products and support this initiative," MTR CEO Sanjay Sharma said at the National Organic and Millets Trade Fair 2017 here.

National Head of Buying and Merchandising, Big Basket, Sheshukumar said, Big Basket is propagating use of organic products among consumers because it is difficult to find all organic products under one roof with the help of state government which is linking them with farmers directly.

"It is a daring step by government.. No directory was available, but this is a very good thing which will help us link with the farmers directly.. Big Basket is propagating the organic products to consumers," he said.

Agriculture Minister Krishna Byre Gowda, in the august company of retailers and FMCG companies, launched "Brand Siri Karnataka," which will ensure millets become rich man's saviour nationally and internationally.

The brand was selected keeping in mind the richness of millets to human health and wellness, he said.

Gowda also launched "Shresta Karnataka," a name selected keeping in mind the importance of organic farming practices to nature, environment and ecology.

"Siri Karnataka and Shreshta Karnataka will facilitate the organised marketing of these high quality food items," Gowda said.

"We will train farmer groups on grading, packing and quality aspects.. This is a big step towards 'From farmers to consumers' direct linkages," he added.

The brand name can be used only by those farmers who are certified or under the certification process, the Minister said.

"Only after three years (IC 1, IC 2, IC 3) are they certified fully organic.

Karnataka has the most stringent certification norms of all states," he added.

The farming federations of Karnataka, who engage in organic farming practices and the cultivation of millets, will be offered the usage of these brands to market their products and also earn better incomes through value added products that could be marketed under these brand names, Gowda said.

Next-Gen Food Startups, Big Organised and Progressive retailers can get in touch with the Organic cell running the programme, the minister added.

Go here to see the original:

FMCGs eye organic food products, millets biz - Outlook India

BENGALURU: Even as the world laps up organic produce, India leads the way with highest acreage of land under organic production. Such is the demand, with a buoyant export market, that the central government body, Agricultural and Processed food products Export Development Authority (APEDA), has been assigned to regulate the sale of organic produce by ensuring each item is certified by a reputed agency.

However, 28 certification bodies approved by APEDA, each with different manuals, has made it a messy affair. While APEDA has laid out broad guidelines for certification of organic produce which have to be adhered for export of produce, there is no regulation for the domestic market.

According to the international Competence Centre for Organic Agriculture (CCOA), Karnataka has 93,963 hectares of land either certified or in the process of certification as being organic in nature. Karnataka is third in production, with 2.82 lakh tonnes of food being considered organic.

Farmer producer organisations said certification is provided for Rs 35,000 per organisation. "We pay Rs 35,000 for certification from the Karnataka State Organic Certification Agency (KSOCA) for getting our produce authenticated as organic. The certification is for three years," Krupa T, president, Chitradurga and Davanagere Organic Farmers Federation, said.

The federation has 40 organisations with 3,800 farmers as members. When asked o whether the certification agency gives its seal of approval to every farmer's produce, Krupa said it is for the organisation. "The certification is meant for organisation which take the responsibility of the organic produce," Krupa said.

Here is the original post:

Authentication of organic products a mess - Times of India

Alexander C.N., et al. Treating and preventing alcohol, nicotine, and drug abuse through Transcendental Meditation: A review and statistical meta-analysis. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly 11: 13-87, 1994.

Aron E.N. and Aron A. The patterns of reduction of drug and alcohol use among Transcendental Meditation participants. Bulletin of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors 2: 28-33, 1983.

Clements G., et al. The use of the Transcendental Meditation programme in the prevention of drug abuse and in the treatment of drug-addicted persons. Bulletin on Narcotics 40(1): 5156, 1988.

Gelderloos P., et al. Effectiveness of the Transcendental Meditation program in preventing and treating substance misuse: A review. International Journal of the Addictions 26: 293325, 1991.

Gelderloos P., et al. Effectiveness of the Transcendental Meditation program in preventing and treating substance misuse: A review. International Journal of the Addictions 26: 293325, 1991.

Orme-Johnson D. W. Transcendental Meditation as an epidemiological approach to drug and alcohol abuse: Theory, research, and financial impact evaluation. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 11, 119-165, 1994.

Royer A. The role of the Transcendental Meditation technique in promoting smoking cessation: A longitudinal study. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly 11: 219-236, 1994.

Shafii M. et al. Meditation and marijuana. American Journal of Psychiatry 131: 60-63, 1974.

Shafii M. et al. Meditation and the prevention of alcohol abuse. American Journal of Psychiatry 132: 942-945, 1975.

Wallace R.K. et al. Decreased drug abuse with Transcendental Meditation: A study of 1,862 subjects. In Drug Abuse: Proceedings of the International Conference, ed. Chris J.D. Zarafonetis (Philadelphia: Lea and Febiger): 369-376, 1972.

Walton K. G., and Levitsky, D.A. A neuroendocrine mechanism for the reduction of drug use and addictions by Transcendental Meditation. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly 11: 89-117, 1994.

Excerpt from:

Transcendental Meditation (TM) Technique - Central ...