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SIMAP-A
Success Story |
Forty
years back, agriculture land in the Southern states
of India would value more than gold. A bundle
of cotton or few bags of paddy could buy a piece
of gold sovereign. Good agriculture was a sign
of prosperity and villagers were enjoying. With
the changing of time, the gold valued many times
more than the agriculture commodities. This trend
compelled the farmers to abandon the agriculture
and migrate to urban areas in search of jobs.
Those who could not leave fell under heavy debts
and were forced to commit suicide. The economic
condition of the farmers was deteriorating year
by year.
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While
pondering over the deteriorating economic condition
of farming community we made up our mind to accept
the challenge of metamorphosing the traditional
agriculture into modern profit making venture.
We constituted a company known as South Indian
Mint and Allied Products (SIMAP) as a model agri-business
company for demonstrating innovative farming system
for sustainable growth and development in rural
areas and started to gather the information on
modern concept and technology in agriculture by
interacting and visiting various farmers, scientists
and scientific institutions, marketers, exporters,
manufacturers etc. throughout the country and
abroad. We studied the agriculture systems in
India and abroad in depth and conducted several
experiments on cash crops. Till May 2005 we could
not succeed in finding a sustainable solution
to our problem. |
We
continued to struggle and in the quest of success
we came in contact with Dr. C. S. Raghav, Principal
Director, Fragrance and Flavour Development Centre
(FFDC), Govt. of India, Kannauj, U.P. , who gave
us not only lot of insight in the mint cultivation,
but also an inspiration, energy and hope for sure
success. He introduced us to Dr. G.N. Qazi, Director,
Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (IIIM),
(CSIR), Govt. of India, and it was a turning point
in the success story of SIMAP. |
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We met
Dr. Qazi and showed our interest and expectations
from him and his institute, as flared by Dr. Raghav.
We saw in him a great lover of innovative farmers
and entrepreneurs. He made us felt to be special
as we had reached all along from Kanyakumari to
Kashmir. He assured us great success in our endeavour
and bestowed his newly developed a l-carvone rich
Mentha longifolia variety-Anantcarvomint,
on us. |
From
our past study and experience we could perceive
that Dr Qazi was giving us the key of a gold mine
as there was a great demand of l-carvone rich
essential oils throughout the world. Later Dr.
R.K.Raina, Deputy Director, of his Institute helped
us a lot in facilitating the material and technology
transfer process. We signed an agreement as per
mutual convenience and lifted the planting material
by air and planted in our field within 18 hours.
Money was not a matter at this time as we had
to succeed in our mission for the benefit of entire
farming community by setting up a model for them.
At this point, it was the only silver lining and
we did not want to lose this great opportunity
provided by IIIM. We put all our might into it
to get success. |
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The
crop was sown and after few days we were happy
to see an array of newly born ‘Anantlets’
peeping out of the mother earth. It was an emotional
situation for the entire farming community of
the area to see a barren land turning fertile
and yielding green and healthy crop- the crop
of hopes and fortunes of thousand of debt ridden
farmers of the area. The land was once barren,
uncultivable and rainfed, but the gigantic task
of clearing the thorny bushes and stony layer
from the land and also to bring water from 4 km
distance through pipe line along the road was
performed with great passion and perfection. |
The
crop was recommended for obtaining two cutting
a year, but the nature was happy with our efforts
and bestowed us with four cuttings a year. The
oil content was also higher (1.0%). The profit
was doubled. It was a new finding in mints and
hearing this, several distinguished dignitaries
and visitors including eminent scientists, professions,
experts, farmers and govt authorities visited
our farm and complimented and encouraged us by
their blessings, guidance, expertise and knowledge.
The technical guidance and monitoring by Dr. J.S.
Balyan, Dr. Suresh Chandra and Dr .V.K.Kaul
Senior Scientists and Deputy Directors, who helped
and guided us through out crop period and distillation
process IIIM, was commendable. |
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To communicate
and share our success we organised a workshop
on 18 January 2007 at kanyakumari. Several eminent
personalities graced the occasion and applauded
at our success.
Today we are the biggest farmer of India for organically
produced l-carvone rich mint and the only grower
over the world for a l-carvone rich Mentha
longifolia variety- Anant carvomint. |
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