CULTIVATION AT CHANDRIKANI
Once
sufficient seeds and seedlings have been produced in the nursery at
Chajogi, they will be sowed or transplanted into selected areas of land
at approximately 3000m. Again, this land can only be used by VFDCs with
permission from the forest department.
The photograph on the left shows the type of landscape found at 3000m. It takes about 4 hours to reach here from the nearest village. At this height there are no permanent dwelling structures, just a few tents, as shown in the photograph below, that cater for trekkers using the route to cross Chandrikani pass down into the Parvati Valley.
In order to manage a cultivation site of approximately
four hectares, the VFDC members will need a housing unit of their own,
large enough to accommodate two or three people on a full time basis,
as well as visitors and volunteers working through Ananda's ecotourism
project. 
The
design of the existing tents at Chandrikani, however, are not ecologically
sound, as they have little insulation and consume a lot of valuable
rhodedendron wood to keep the tents warm.
As part of Ananda's proposed project, working in collaboration with the forest department and the VFDCs, we aim to develop a design for a more ecological housing unit that is well insulated and in harmony with the surrounding environment. The most likely design is to be what is known as an 'earthshelter', a simple mud and stone dwelling that is half built into the hill with a protruding roof made of turf.
Members of the Chajogi VFDC have agreed that the best way to decide who works up at the cultivation site will be to set up rotation system of people in the village, who need work and have attended training. In this way, although there will only be two or three people at one time, many villagers will have the opportunity to work there if they choose.
In the beginning a lot of work will have to be invested into fencing off the selected areas, and nourishing the depleted soil with compost (depleted after years of intensive grazing of sheep and cattle). Most of the plants require three years to reach full-size, therefore within the selected area three plots are required so that plants can be staggered on a three-year rotation. In this way, after the first three years there will be a continued production of plants each year.
Harvesting and Primary Processing
Harvesting
methods will be carried out according to the Good Agricultural Practices
(GAP) guidelines, issued by the World Health Organisation. Emphasis
will be placed on ensuring that foreign matter does not contaminate
the raw material after it is harvested, and that the medicinal properties
are not damaged by unnecessary exposure to direct sunlight. At the cultivation
site itself we will construct several solar driers for primary processing
before transporting the raw materials down to the processing unit. The
photo here shows Rajender Chauhan from SAHARA, a neighbouring NGO, showing
one of their solar driers.
Organic Certification
In order to increase the value of the medicinal plants produced at Chandrikani we intend to have the nurseries and cultivation land certified as organic. This is mostly likely to be carried out by Indocert, India's first internationally accredited certification agency. Natural products that are certified as organic are increasingly in demand, especially from consumers in the west. Furthermore, if consumers can be assured that they are directly helping to conserve endangered species of medicinal plants and provide a sustainable source of income to the producers, the demand will grow even more.
Cultivation on Private Land
During the initial stages of the project we are also identifying potential growers with suitable private land. Already many people have approached us and told us that we can use their land, but the general feeling is that before they risk their own investment most of them prefer to wait and see how profitable our pilot project in Chajogi is going to be. If we can demonstrate through our pilot project that they can indeed earn money and that there is a reliable market, then there is no doubt that many people will switch to medicinal plant cultivation as their primary source of income.
Although many of the most valuable species require high altitude for cultivation, there are a number of species, including Valeriana jatamansi and Diascorea deltoidea that can be cultivated at the altitude of most villages, i.e. between 1800m and 2000m. There is therefore huge potential to promote the cultivation of these plants at the household level, and there is a need to concentrate on marketing these species in particular.