In News: Lavender brings in a scent of profit for Doda farmers, Around 500 farmers across villages in Doda had their incomes quadrupled after shifting from maize to lavender.
About Purple Revolution
- Most farmers of Khillani village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Doda district, used to cultivate maize.
- Then, in 2016, the Centre launched Aroma Mission to boost cultivation of plants like lavender which have aromatic medicinal properties.
- Around 500 farmers from Doda district have seen similar gains after switching from maize to the perennial flowering plant.
- As the profits started flowing in, lavender replaced maize plants on more land around with lavender till the flowers covered almost ten times the area than a decade ago.
Purple economy
- Lavender oil sells for at least Rs 10,000 per litre, according to scientists from Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu (IIIM Jammu), the two bodies responsible for taking the Aroma Mission forward.
- A minimum of 40l of lavender oil is produced from lavender grown over one hectare of land. However, because Doda is flatter than desirable, 32-40l of lavender oil can be extracted per hectare from the local produce
- Lavender water, which separates from lavender oil, is used to make incense sticks.
- Hydrosol, which is formed after distillation from the flowers, is used to make soaps and room fresheners.
- Apart from increasing farm incomes, lavender cultivation also provided employment to the district’s women farmers.
Aroma Mission : Catalyzing Rural Empowerment through Cultivation, Value Addition and Marketing of Aromatic Plants
- The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has contributed significantly in the development, nurturing and positioning of essential oil-based aroma industry in the country.
- Industry thus needs to reposition itself in this important segment. CSIR once again proposes to contribute for the purpose in a mission mode. CSIR Aroma Mission has been conceptualized and is being made operational.
- The nodal laboratory is CSIR-Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (CSIR-CIMAP), Lucknow.
- 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.
- The mission will promote the cultivation of aromatic crops for essential oils that are in great demand by the aroma industry.
- The activities of the Mission will improve availability of quality material on a sustainable basis for a boom in the herbal industry based on essential oils.
- The scientific interventions made under the mission project would provide assured benefits to the growers of Vidarbha, Bundelkhand, Gujarat, Marathwada, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and other states where farmers are exposed to frequent episodes of weather extremes and account for maximum suicides.
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
Source: csir.res.in and DownToEarth
