Doda to host lavender festival

Context

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.

About

CSIR- Aroma Mission:

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.
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.

About Lavender:

A Mediterranean native, Lavender (Lavandula spica) is an aromatic and herbal shrub.
Highly perfumed and beautiful flowers of the plant come in a variety of colors, for example, violet, blue, pink, mauve, and white can prove an excellent addition to your garden decor.
The plant is perennial and requires a dry and sunny climate to grow.
It is usually cultivated in regions with less rainfall.
The soil for growing these plants needs to be well-draining and rich in calcium carbonate content.

Lavender producing States

At present, large-scale lavender cultivation is limited to Jammu & Kashmir but governments in Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand are also encouraging their farmers to take up lavender.
Small scale farming of the plant is already underway in these states.

Aroma Mission

In 2016, the Centre launched Aroma Mission to boost cultivation of plants like lavender, rosemary and lemon grass and medicinal plants like ashwagandha and satavar which have aromatic medicinal properties.
The state of Jammu and Kashmir was chosen for the implementation of the program, due to its peculiar climate, which is complimented by the presence of a growing market for the products of these plants, like aromatic oils.
The mission was launched with the objective to move from imported aromatic oils to homegrown varieties.
In February, 2021, Government announced Aroma Mission phase 2 after the success of the first phase.
The mission is to increase lavender cultivation to 1,500 hectares within three years from now.

About CSIR

The Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), known for its cutting edge R&D knowledge base in diverse S&T areas, is a contemporary R&D organization.
Established: September 1942
Located: New Delhi
CSIR is funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology and it operates as an autonomous body through the Societies Registration Act, 1860.
CSIR covers a wide spectrum of streams – from radio and space physics, oceanography, geophysics, chemicals, drugs, genomics, biotechnology and nanotechnology to mining, aeronautics, instrumentation, environmental engineering and information technology.