For 20 years, R Selvam has been painstackingly growing paddy, groundnut, coco nut and sesame seeds organically in his 2.8-hectare farmland in Tamil Nadu’s Arachalur village. But July 1 onwards, Selvam can no longer sell the produce to organic retail stores due to a new regulation that bans the retail sale of food labelled as organic unless it has been certified by the government. The regulation, he says, will reduce his farm income by over 70 per cent, which is worth Rs 25 lakh a year. “I sell only 30 per cent of the produce directly to customers, which the regulation says can be done without a certification,” says Selvam. He fears that if the government does not come up with a cheap certification process for individuals, farmers like him might “disappear” altogether.