Value addition by industry intervention will be the key to success for both Mission Aroma and Mission Floriculture, said Dr Mahendra Darokar, Director – Mission Aroma, Govt of India, New Delhi of both programs, while addressing a large gathering of progressive farmers, Agri entrepreneurs and industrialists of Vidarbha Industries Association Agro & Rural Development Forum at VIA Auditorium, Nagpur as well as virtually.
Dr Darokar highlighted the importance of Vidarbha in terms of varying Soil conditions, soil richness and fertility as suitable for various Medicinal plants like Vetiver, Geranium, Lemon Grass, Citronella, Palmarosa etc as highly suitable with low water requirement for growth. At the same time Vidarbha and Satpuda region will see a big boom for floriculture business in the coming days.
Promotion of cultivation and processing of aromatic and floriculture crops, enhancing area under selected crops through enabling interventions including setting up of processing units, popularization of superior varieties and post-harvest technologies etc were the objectives during the earlier phases of the program. However now time has come for Value-addition to aromatic and Floriculture crops including Fractionation for High Value components, Extraction and isolation of Active Pharma Ingredients, Cosmeceuticals and Phytochemicals, including Organisation of various skill development activities to empower farmers, Agri entrepreneurs and promote entrepreneurship- where in Industries will play a substantial role.
Dr Darokar appreciated the efforts of VIA Agro & Rural Development Forum for such regular sessions under the HERBORAMA series for the overall benefit of Vidarbha farmers.
Dr Darokar highlighted some products of importance, as developed by CSIR like Alcohol-Free Herbal Hand Sanitizer, Herbal Mosquito Repellent Candle, Herbal Anti-Inflammatory Pain-Relieving Gel, Herbal Antifungal formulations, Immunomodulatory drinks, indoor air purifiers, Vetiver thread for cool jackets in summer, Steam distilled biomass for eco-friendly disposable plates / cutlery and appealed to the Industrialists to go for such licensed Technologies.
CSIR will free supply improved and authentic samplings to CIMAP registered farmers including Technical assistance, said Dr Darokar. He also appealed to the farmers to form clusters of Marginal farmers at different locations to avail various Central Govt Schemes. At the same time he also urged the industrialist to go for various Business Modules like Certified Nursery Developments, Encourage Group farming and assured Crop buy back for further processing like distillation etc, Value added products, Setting up Quality Control / testing laboratories, Fractionation etc.
The program started with mass singing of the National Anthem, was conducted by Shachi Mallick, Convener and Kapil Sahoo, Director Project. Prominently present in the program were Om Jajodia, Chairman – VIA Agro & Rural Development Forum, Sanjay Sinha, Dr Rina Saha, Chetan Waghmare, Anirudh, Subhas Wanjari, Vivek Suryavanshi, Mohan Pokhale, Sani Totewar, Amul Suresh.
Kiran Gokhale, popular agriculturist proposed the vote of thanks.
(Seating from Left to right Dr Rina Saha, Kapil Sahoo, Om Jajodia, Dr Mahendra Darokar, Shachi Mallick and Kiran Gokhale)
