By April 2013, expect your shopping bag to flaunt organic tomatoes, cabbages, peas, turmeric and ginger. National Horticulture Mission (Jharkhand) director Prabhakar Singh told newsmen in Ranchi on Monday that by next spring, buyers could snap up vegetables and spices grown in the state without chemicals, including fertilisers, pesticides and hormones. For an organic stamp, the wait would be longer. “Certification of organic products takes time. Agencies undertake soil tests of a given plot for over three years before stating officially that the product was grown without chemicals. But we’d like to tell buyers that our farmers are growing genuine organic stuff, albeit without a legal certificate,” Singh said. In India, Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) regulates certification of organic products undertaken by recognised agencies. Such food products have an India Organic certification issued by the APEDA. Organically farmed vegetables are said to offer unbeatable health and ecology gains — “toxin-free food, soil and water” — but come with a premium, niche tag. In Jharkhand, out of 79.10 lakh hectares of landmass, farming is carried out over 38 lakh hectares, but organic cultivation uses 1 per cent. “Only 38,000 hectares is used for organic farming,” Singh said. To encourage organic farming, Singh said they would host a two-day international conference-cum-workshop with a trade fair in Ranchi on November 8 and 9 under the newly formed Organic Farming Authority of Jharkhand. Chief minister Arjun Munda will inaugurate the meet, while former Union agriculture minister Som Pal Shastri, state agriculture minister Satyanand Jha Batul, experts from Australia and Germany will attend it, he added. A three-day national meet on agriculture in context of climate change that ended at Birsa Agricultural University (BAU) on Monday, also urged innovative thinking such as evolving new crops, monitoring pests and diseases as well as strengthening forecasts.