MKSP SPECIAL PROJECT (Medicinal AND Plants)

Jharkhand is one of the potential natural resource states in India. More than 1500 medicinal and aromatic species are found in the state which contributes 5% of the overall production of herbal medicinal produce in the country. However the usefulness of state and national Research and Development on medicinal species and NTFP has not been disseminated to the bottom of pyramid and other stakeholders. After drilling down the study and interaction with the stakeholders, few observations can be quoted as follows.

• Isolated approach among the stakeholders.

• Close and unfair market system.

• Poor condition of knowledge dissemination.

• Lower rate of adoption of scientific method for harvesting.

• Inefficient grounding of technology (end-to-end) across all stakeholders (beneficiaries to consumers).

This would be one of the pioneering and eco-friendly projects where 12500 beneficiaries are going to be promoted through scientific and justifiable intervention methodology. The project will cover four potential districts of Jharkhand (West Singhbum, Gumla, Khunti and Simdega) covering 10 blocks and 500 villages, where 25 farmers will be undertaken from each village. This will cover forty percent of forest area and produce sixty percent of forest products within the state. The operational modality will focus on promotion of 400 Producer Groups (PG) and development of Social Capitals under 16 production clusters, where each cluster will cater 780 net farmers and develop 16 production clusters& this will be worked as processing units/collection centers in future. All collection centers will develop as a processing unit with a particular territory and beneficiaries. It can also develop as multiple commodity processing centers.

S.No	Name of the Product	No of Farmers
1	Kusum	2500
2	Karanj	3000
3	Harre	3000
4	Bahare	3000
5	Tulsi cultivation & collection of Van Tulsi	1000
6.1	Aonla cultivation	500
6.2	Aonla collection (Wild)	3000
7	Kalmergh	3000
8	Chirounji	1000
	Total Farmers (Net farmers)	12500

Project Objectives:

The specific objectives of the proposed project are as follows:

i) To create a self-sustain medicinal plant based livelihood model by post harvesting management and adding values in both forward and backward linkages with a communitized approach.

ii) To up-gradation the knowledge and skills of women farmers in medicinal based plants/herbs and resource management practices.

iii) To develop livelihood prototypes appropriate to local production system and socio-economic conditions focusing rural women.

iv) To create a pool of local resources for the management and expansion of the medicinal based livelihoods programs.

v) To promote scientific Aloe Vera, Tulsi, Lemon grass, Aonla cultivation and Karanj, Kusum, Chironji collection with processing for increased income.

vi) Improved working conditions for women farmers with the use of women friendly tools and technologies involving low level of drudgery.

Project Strategy:

i) Identification of locally available community knowledge and resources for revitalization and mass level propagation. Capacity building of women farmers and CRPs on sustainable medicinal base practices and resource management through field based training, demonstration and exposure visits. Enhancing the capacity of the women farmers to adopt eco-friendly technologies, measures for bio-diversity conservation and resilient practices to negate climate change.

ii) Detail livelihood planning at household and group level including resource augmentation & utilization plan, investment plan, working capital requirement etc. The seasonal medicinal plant base livelihood planning will be part of the plan which will includes processing, post harvesting mechanisms, market linkage, scientific collection and plant protection practices, medicinal plant cultivation and backyard farming for daily nutritional benefit plan by considering land holding and available irrigation facilities. The plan would incorporate possibilities of sustainable medicinal based practices, cash crops, food security as well as nutrition requirement of the beneficiary families, soil health, environment, adoption of new livelihood activities etc.

iii) Development of community level medicinal base producer groups and company as demonstration cum learning platform for practical and experimental learning, cross visits by women farmers, facilitation of best practitioners, use of digital media for knowledge dissemination.

Intervention Area:

S.No	Name of the District	Name of Block	Name of Medicinal Plant
1	West Singhbhum	Manoharpur, Khutpani	Kusum Karanaj Chirounji Aonla Kalmergh
2	Simdega	Bano, ThethaiTangar, Jaldega	Harre Bahara Chirounji Tulsi Aonla Kalmergh
3	Khunti	Khunti	Kusum Harra Bahara Tulsi Aonla Karanj
4	Latehar	Barwadih, Manika	Harra Bahara Tulsi Aonla
5	Hazaribagh	Katkamsandi, Churchu	Harra Bahara Tulsi Aonla