Nature Bio Foods India: Organic plus Fairtrade

Nature Bio Foods CEO Tapan Ray estimates a big boost of the Indian organic sector. Photo © Karin Heinze

Nature Bio-Foods Ltd (NBF), a pioneer in organic food grains since 1997, has taken great initiative to bring sustainability to small and marginal farms through organic agriculture production in combination with the world’s highest ethical standards from Faitrade International, Germany and their FLO-Cert Fairtrade standard. It has been promoting organic agriculture in India for the last 20 years and placed India on the international list of leading standard organic food and ingredients suppliers in line with countries like Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, France, Austria, Denmark, Czech Republic, Belgium, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Middle Eastern countries.

The Ecolife brand is well known in India and abroad. Photo © Karin Heinze

NBF has adopted farmers in the organic agriculture programme and gradually converted them to grow quality certified organic products as per the National Programme of Organic Production (NPOP) of Government of India and various international organic standards from countries like EU, USA, Canada, Japan, Germany, Switzerland. Achieving various organic standards at the field level has made the organic farmers under NBF one of the most successful and remunerative with sustainable income from organic crops. Farmers were imparted with training on organic practices, wherein traditional agriculture and the science of organic agriculture is combined to make it more practical and sustainable for organic crop production.

A video interview with Tapan Ray, CEO of Nature Bio Foods was held at BioFach India together with India Organic 2017 in Delhi

It was understood by the Nature Bio-Foods Ltd management that organic small and marginal land holders must be benefited at their community level to bring in long term organic cultural development in the village community and gradually spread to the taluka (sub-district) level, district, state and National level. Striving towards achieving community development by combining organic agriculture, Fairtrade was adopted. To deeply involve and spread the goodness of the organic business by contributing a sustainable socio-economic development of the small and marginal farmers, Nature Bio-Foods Ltd has created a farmer based organisation called Fair Farming Foundation (FFF) in 2009. Organic farmers becoming the members of FFF gained further confidence of their organic production with the applicable Fairtrade principles in their farming activities and their farming income level.

Nature Bio-Foods Ltd has been actively supporting FFF to establish itself as a successful farmers’ organisation. Farmers are imparted training to carry out administrative, financial and budgetary planning for project development for the village community and they follow the democratic decision making process. The farmers get the assurance of their most desired optimum price (Fairtrade Support Price), which is higher than the market price.

“Sustainability in the organic business can be achieved with radical change and leadership in the supply chain—with long term planning, training, education and development of the farming community as a whole. The company needs to partner with farmers to improve the latter’s socio-economic conditions, as well as, to create a better environment for all, and also connect with consumers with value added organic products. Thus, combining Fairtrade principles in the business can be the most important tool for reaching holistic and sustainable goals,” says Tapan Ray.

Fairtrade is one of the important pilllars of Nature Bio Foods and strongly supported. Photo © Karin Heinze

Nature Bio-Foods Ltd, with its overseas buying partners and Fairtrade India, has been continuously promoting Fairtrade certified products market development in India. In Fairtrade-matured markets like Switzerland, Germany, Austria, France, Sweden, Denmark and many of the European, North American countries, Canada and many of the developed countries like Japan, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand, some of the largest super market chains sell over 2,200 SKU of Fairtrade  certified products. It may be possible to develop markets in a similar way by educating consumers about the benefits of consuming certified Fairtrade & Organic, which are truly champion products.

Nature Bio Foods booth at the BioFach India - India Organics 2017. Photo © Karin Heinze

Buying and consuming these products will directly involve consumers to actively contribute to the protection of soil and the environment from harmful agrochemicals, thereby creating better working conditions (chemical free) at the farm for farmers and labourers, ensuring fair wages and prices to all workers and farmers in the value addition chain—from raw farm produce to packaged finished products. This will give stability to the farming community and improve their socio-economic conditions, as well as, help them to utilise the fairtrade premium for community development, which is derived from every packet of product bought by consumers. Fairtrade and Organic will connect farmers to the consumers in a winning way to make the world more sustainable. Nature Bio-Foods Ltd has launched its organic and fairtrade certified products like ecoLife Rice and there are more products in the pipeline such as fairtrade pulses, oils, nuts, spices, sweeteners, fresh fruits and vegetables, etc.

Tapan Ray, CEO of Bio Nature Foods / Ecolife. Photo © Karin Heinze

Tapan Ray:

CEO, Nature Bio-Foods Ltd

President, Fair Farming Foundation (FFF)

Board Member, Fairtrade International

Board Member, Asia Pacific Producers Network

This article was first published in Pure & Eco India, an Indian print magazine focusing on South Asia’s organic sector, and www.pureecoindia.in is its digital representation