132-year-old Dabur to grow rare Ayurvedic herbs in 3,800 acres of land

Dabur, a fusion of Ayurveda and Science

India CSR News Network

NEW DELHI: The world’s largest Ayurvedic products manufacturing company Dabur India Ltd is taking a giant leap forward in its mission to make Ayurveda contemporary by marrying this age-old traditional wisdom with Science.

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Dabur has embarked on a journey to become the largest bulk grower of rare medicinal herbs, with 2,700 acres of land currently under cultivation of these rare medicinal plants, and a strategy to increase the number to 3,800 by the end of the 2016-17 financial year.

These developments will nearly double the area under cultivation of rare medicinal herbs in the country by Dabur India Ltd. Spread across 8 states – including the most difficult terrain on earth Leh-Ladakh – this initiative involves local farmers and tribal communities across the country and will benefit around 2,500 farmers.

Beginning as an Ayurvedic medicines maker in the bylanes of Kolkata, Dabur has transformed itself into a transnational FMCG Company with ‘Substantiality’ rooted into its DNA. The company has been at the forefront of not just preserving the natural resources but also helping them multiply and flourish. Dabur’s transformational journey has been propelled and powered by Dabur’s rich heritage of Ayurveda and deep knowledge of nature. Dabur has married this traditional knowledge of Ayurveda scriptures with modern day science to develop products which are loved by consumers across generations.

“Dabur, as the world’s largest natural and Ayurvedic products maker, believes in practicing responsible ecological management and has been working towards attending to environmental problems through its Bio Resources Development (BRD) initiative.

The company has established a fully automated state-of-the-art greenhouse in Pantnagar (Uttarakhand). This is the first-of-its-kind greenhouse by virtue of its sophistication coupled with scale of operations, and is dedicated exclusively for medicinal plants.

The facility caters to the supply of elite planting material to the farmers and this process enables farmers to cultivate and supply well-standardised medicinal plants on a large scale. We have identified around 100 rare and critical medicinal herbs. Today, we are cultivating 23 of these herbs and have drawn up a roadmap to initiate cultivation of another 27”, Dabur India Ltd Head-BRD Dr Baba said.

Dabur is emerging as the fastest bulk herb growers in the country with this initiative. The company has grown and distributed close to 7.5 lakh saplings of rare medicinal herbs to farmers in 2015-16 from its greenhouse. Dabur’s continuous engagement with the community has helped revive host of endangered plant species and establish a sustainable source of livelihood for forest based communities. It has also created a fair and transparent mechanism under its contract farming projects. It engages marginal farmers to a large extent, providing them visible economic opportunities while helping the conservation of the natural resources in wide ranging eco-systems. Elite planting materials, grown in Dabur’s greenhouse, are given to the farmers for further phase of cultivation and are later bought back by the company on mutually agreed terms.

Moving forward on this mission, Dabur is now establishing herbal gardens across Ayurvedic colleges and universities in India. Christened Dabur Chyawan Vatika, these herbal gardens would make available rare Ayurvedic medicinal plants for the coming generations. Under this initiative, the company will provide samples of rare medicinal plants from its Greenhouse to Ayurveda Colleges to be grown and nurtured in these herbal gardens. These herbs will be donated to India’s Top 50 Ayurveda medical colleges and cultivated in the herbal garden, which will be named ‘Dabur Chyawan Vatika’. This year, Dabur has used this medium to cultivate herbs useful in curing Diabetes.