• Minister of Cooperation recently launched the ‘Bharat Organics’ brand of the newly created National Cooperative Organics Ltd (NCOL) and asserted that it will emerge as the most “trusted” brand in India and abroad.

There are 7.89 crore cooperative societies across the country with a total membership of 29 crore.

• NCOL’s logo, website and brochure were also launched.
• Initially, NCOL will sell the organic products in India and later will market in other countries.

ABOUT NCOL

• NCOL has been established under the Multi State Cooperative Societies Act, 2002.
  • NCOL is one of the three new cooperatives the government has set up recently.
  • The other two cooperatives work in the field of certified seeds and exports.
• National Dairy Development Board is the chief promoter.
• NCOL aims to cover the entire supply chain of organic products through cooperative networks by undertaking various activities like aggregation, certification, production, testing, procurement, storage, processing, branding, packaging, labeling, marketing, etc for the ultimate benefit of farmer members.

CURRENT STATUS

• Organic agriculture is practiced in 190 countries on 749 lakh hectares of land and India ranks 4th globally in organic agricultural land and first in number of producers as per 2020 data.
• India has 27 lakh hectares of land under certified organic certification, including cultivable and wild harvest areas.
• The country produced 29 lakh tonnes of certified organic products in 2022-23, as per the official data.