An organic farm in Sikkim, India

What does it take to turn 75,000 hectares (1 hectare is 2.47 acres, so 75,000 hectares is 185,329 acres)  of farmland organic? Well, people in the state of Sikkim can now speak to that. A mountainous region in eastern India, Sikkim recently became the first state in that country to go fully organic.

The Chief Minister of Sikkim announced this vision for the state’s 290 square miles of agricultural land in 2003, in response to the serious environmental and health problems resulting from chemically intensive farming methods. A combination of political will, use of local farmer’s traditional knowledge and the willingness to share technical know-how made this vision a reality.

This news is especially encouraging coming from India, which has very high rates of pesticide use — and where media stories abound about farmer suicides and pesticide related cancer clusters. This is also a wonderful model to point to as we struggle to […]