In news : On February 9, 2021, CSIR-IIIM-Jammu announced Aroma Mission phase 2 after the success of the first phase.
About CSIR Aroma Mission: Catalyzing Rural Empowerment through Cultivation, Value Addition and Marketing of Aromatic Plants
- Launch: 2016
- The CSIR Aroma Mission is envisaged to bring transformative change in the aroma sector through desired interventions in the areas of agriculture, processing and product development for fuelling the growth of aroma industry and rural employment.
- Aim: It is aimed at development of superior aroma crop varieties and their agro-technologies and assessment of their suitability for the large scale cultivation in specific agro-climatic regions
- The nodal laboratory for the Mission: CSIR-Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (CSIR-CIMAP), Lucknow
- The participating laboratories are
- CSIR-Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology (CSIR-IHBT),Palampur
- CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (CSIR-IIIM),Jammu
- CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute (CSIR-NBRI), Lucknow
- CSIR-North-East Institute of Science and Technology (CSIR-NEIST), Jorhat.
- The mission will promote the cultivation of aromatic crops for essential oils that are in great demand by the aroma industry.
- It is expected to enable Indian farmers and aroma industry to become global leaders in the production and export of some other essential oils on the pattern of menthol mint.
- This is expected to provide substantial benefits to the farmers in achieving higher profits, utilization of waste lands and protection of their crops from wild and grazing animals.
- The activities of the Mission will improve availability of quality material on sustainable basis for a boom in the herbal industry based on essential oils.
The objectives of the Mission have been divided into eight verticals. These include:
- Development of superior varieties and their agro-technologies and assessment of their suitability for specific agro-climatic regions
- Promotion of cultivation and processing of aromatic crops, enhancing area under selected aromatic crops along with enabling interventions including setting up of distillation units and catalysing setting up of cooperatives for marketing of the produce
- Value-addition of aromatic crops (High-end aroma chemicals and products) ;
- Skill development activities
- Intellectual property generation, valuation and management
- Entrepreneurship development/Spin-offs
- Business development
This Mission aims to achieve following outcomes:
- Bring about 5500 ha of additional area under captive cultivation aromatic cash crops particularly targeting rain-fed /degraded land across the country
- Provide technical and infrastructural support for distillation and values-addition to farmers/growers all over the country
- Enabling effective buy-back mechanisms to assure remunerative prices to the farmers/growers
- Value-addition to essential oils and aroma ingredients for their integration in global trade and economy
