Doda to host lavender festival
- Category
Economy
- Published
30th May, 2022
-
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 (Lavandulaspica) 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.
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