Italian firm shows interest in buying jute bags from Deula

An Italian organisation has expressed interest in procuring jute and cotton bags with organic colour from Deula village in South 24 Parganas. The state government has also decided to declare the village as a bio-village soon.

This comes at a time when the state Agriculture department is giving stress on organic farming and already 28 bio-villages have been set up by the state government in 14 districts including Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, South Dinajpur, Murshidabad, Hooghly, Birbhum, Bankura, North and South 24 Parganas.

Sources said representatives of an organisation from Italy had recently visited Deula village where around 75 families are involved in organic farming. They have shown interest in procuring the fancy bags made out of 80 percent jute and 20 percent cotton. The use of organic paints to colour the bags also attracted the representatives. They took samples along with them and would soon place orders to procure such bags from the villagers.

Purnendu Basu, the state Agriculture minister, had visited the village on Tuesday where the villagers involved in organic farming have shown power point presentations on their work.

Deula village is soon going to be declared as a bio-village and the state government along with Nabard and agricultural institutes are providing all necessary supports to the villagers to undertake organic farming.

Three villages in Gosaba, Sonarpur and Sagar in South 24 Parganas have already being declared as bio-villages. Deula near Mograhaat will be the fourth village to come up as a bio-village in the district.

The Italian organisation will also be going for a knowledge sharing programme with the villagers in helping them gain more familiarity with storing paddy in a zone where the level of moisture in the air remains high. There was also a discussion about setting up a machine in the village for around 10 tonne of paddy.

It may be mentioned that besides 38 bio-villages of the state government, there are around 12 clusters where around 50 farmers undertake organic farming on 50 acre of land in each cluster. At the same time, there are more than 150 non-government organisation who are involved in organic farming in the state.

It may be mentioned that organic farming had almost come to an end during the Left Front regime. The Mamata government has revived the situation and is taking steps to bring a revolution in the field of organic farming.