Down To Earth last year reported on Jammu’s 'purple revolution’
The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (CSIR-IIIM) will organise a festival to promote lavender in Bhaderwah (Doda district) of Jammu and Kashmir May 25-26.
An industry-academia-farmers meet will mark the first day. Dignitaries are set to visit lavender fields and see a demonstration of distillation of lavender oil. Lavender farmers and start-ups will be felicitated.
Lavender cultivation has supplemented farmers’ income in the area.
Read Jammu's purple revolution: Lavender brings in scent of profit for Doda farmers
The CSIR-AROMA Mission aims to develop and disseminate the aroma-related science and technology to reach the end users / clients of CSIR: Farmers, industry and society.
The mission aims to bring additional area under captive cultivation of aromatic cash crops, particularly targeting rain-fed and degraded land across the country besides aiming to provide technical and infra-structural support for distillation and value additions to farmers and growers all over the country.
The Mission also aims to enable effective buy-back mechanisms to assure remunerative prices to the farmers and growers besides aiming to achieving value-addition to essential oils and aroma ingredients for their integration into global trade and economy.
CSIR-IIIM Jammu has developed an elite variety (RRL12) of lavender over the decades and agro technology to support it. The variety is highly suitable for cultivation in the rain-fed regions of the temperate areas of India, including the Kashmir Valley and temperate areas of the Jammu division.
The institute introduced lavender to farmers in Doda, Rama, Kishtwar, Kathua, Udhampur, Rajouri, Pulwama, Anantnag, Kupwara and Bandipora districts. It provided free quality planting material and end-to-end technology package on cultivation, processing, value addition and marketing of the Lavender crop to the farmers.
CSIR-IIIM also installed 50 distillation units — 45 fixed and five mobile — at different locations across J&K under CSIR-Aroma Mission.
Lavender cultivation has employed about 5,000 farmers and young entrepreneurs in geographically remote areas of J&K. More than 1,000 farming families are cultivating it on more than 200 acres. (India Science Wire)
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