The Hindu : National : Aroma bio-villages planned in Rae Bareli, Sultanpur

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Sunday, Aug 05, 2007
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Aroma bio-villages planned in Rae Bareli, Sultanpur

Atiq Khan

To popularise cultivation of medicinal and aromatic plants

LUCKNOW: “Aroma bio-villages” will be established in Rae Bareli and Sultanpur districts in Uttar Pradesh for the cultivation of economically viable medicinal and aromatic plants. The aroma bio-village project was launched by the Union Science and Technology Minister, Kapil Sibal, at the Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (CIMAP) here on Saturday.

In fact, aroma bio-villages will be the latest addition to the slew of Central projects proposed for Rae Bareli, which is represented in Parliament by the United Progressive Alliance Chairperson, Sonia Gandhi.

The pilot project will be implemented during a period of three years involving about 60 farms in Rae Bareli and Sultanpur. Two aroma bio-villages will be established with one nucleus farm in each district. Essential oil-bearing grasses of economic importance (lemongrass, palmarosa and vetiver) will be taken up for stressed soils where mint and Indian Basil will be integrated in the cropping system.

About 40 per cent of the land mass in Rae Bareli and Sultanpur is salinity-affected and unfit for agricultural use. Research conducted at CIMAP has shown that many aromatic plants do not require intensive farm inputs and can be cultivated under natural stress condition.

These aroma bio-villages will serve as replicable model with multiplier effect to grow into more bio-villages in the other districts of Uttar Pradesh.

Talking to newspersons, Mr. Sibal said the programme had been launched to popularise cultivation of medicinal and aromatic plants and enable the farmer to establish linkages with the industry. He said the project would open up marketing opportunities as the farmers can sell their produce directly to the entrepreneurs. CIMAP would help establish linkage with the buyers of essential oils. It was envisaged that the income of the farmers would be enhanced by 40 to 50 per cent over their existing income.

Around 20 hectares of land in the two districts would be brought under cultivation of aromatic crops and about 3000 mandays of employment would be generated under the project with a multiplier effect over the years.

The Science and Technology Minister stated that each bio-village would be a self-sustaining cluster having facilities ranging from nursery raising to cultivation and post-harvest processing, called distillation.

The pilot project is supported by the Department of Science and Technology, the Centre and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research.

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