ગુજરાતી
English
‘Purple Revolution’ or Mission is Doda Lavender Festival of Fragrant Flowers
The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine has started a festival to promote Bhaderwah Lavender in Doda, Jammu and Kashmir.
Doda farmers have benefited from the scent of lavender. In Gujarat 240 million tonnes of flowers of all types are cultivated in 20,000 hectares. Which was grown 20 years ago in 5 thousand hectares. Most of the floriculture is done in Central Gujarat. Navsari and Anand are the leaders in floriculture.
CSIR-AROMA provides technical and infrastructural support for distillation and value addition to farmers and producers across the country including Gujarat. Essential oils and fragrances are becoming increasingly important to global trade. Agricultural technology has been developed for this. Lavender provides free quality planting material and end-to-end technology packages for crop cultivation, processing, value addition and marketing.
Under Aroma Mission 50 distillation units have been set up at various places. Lavender cultivation on over 200 acres of land employs about 5,000 farmers and young entrepreneurs in the geographically remote areas of Jammu and Kashmir.
Lavender lives for 10 to 12 years once planted. It is a perennial crop. It can also be grown on barren land with less water. Can also be grown with other crops. Lavender is a European crop. Seeing the benefits, thousands of farmers want to cultivate lavender. Doda is the birthplace of India’s Purple Revolution i.e. Aroma Mission.
Agricultural scientists say that farmers cultivating lavender earn 5-6 times more per hectare than conventional crops.
