ICAR-Central Island Agricultural Research Institute (CIARI), Sri Vijaya Puram, has opened its essential oil distillation unit to farmers of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands as an incubation facility. Growers can bring good-quality raw material from spices and aromatic plants to the institute's Bathu Basti campus and have the oil distilled for Rs 100 a batch.
The unit was set up under the institute's spices project of the Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (CSS-MIDH, NHM). Dr Jai Sunder, acting director of ICAR-CIARI, declared it open to island stakeholders at a training programme held under the Khet Bachao Abhiyan, and urged farmers to use it to diversify their income through value addition.
The programme, on cultivation and value addition in spice and plantation crops, began at the Horticulture Research Farm, Sippighat, with demonstrations of cinnamon harvesting with the institute's Dweep CinnRub tool, a mechanical coconut dehusker and a coconut climbing device. Farmers were shown coconut nursery raising, improved varieties, intercropping in plantations, and harvest and post-harvest handling of spices, and were introduced to combining farming with agro-ecotourism.
At the field distillation unit, farmers watched essential oil being distilled, packed and used, and were shown grafting for quality planting material of dioecious and perennial horticultural crops and protected cultivation of woody pepper.
Forty women and 21 men from nine villages of South Andaman Island took part.
Photo: Jakub Hałun / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
Source: ICAR
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