PJ Chackochan, a grower of medicinal plants, would not flaunt himself as an expert in Ayurveda, which is a multimillion-dollar business in this southwestern state of Kerala.
Yet, as the leader of a non-governmental organization, the middle-aged entrepreneur is particular that a product like Chyavanprash, which emerges from his factory in the hilly Wayanad District should contain all the 47 ingredients mentioned in the texts of the ancient Indian healing system.
What’s more, Chackochan is uncompromising on another tenet: The entire mixture of herbs, spices and other additives for all such products must be extracted from the organic farms that keep fertilizers and chemicals away.
“If you apply chemical fertilizers to the plants, then the yield which is converted into medicine cannot be considered pure,” says the president of Vanamoolika, a community of people dedicated to organic farming.
“As for Chyavanprash, it is so massively manufactured these days in factories that a chunk of it could just be jaggery. We can’t make such compromises. In fact, we don’t even use preservatives.”
The Pulpapply-based NGO launched in 1991 has come a long way, weathering several hurdles along its activities in its 15 acres of farmland and beyond thanks to the state’s bustling tourism industry.
“The challenges continue. Of late, they are two-pronged,” notes Chackochan, who is also executive secretary of the Organic Farmers’ Fair Trade Network. “We can’t afford to fix the prices low — on par with those of the mainstream Ayurvedic firm. Two, our marketing sing has yet to bloom to its fullest.”
Piquantly, the enterprising spirit called Vanamoolika, which is linked to a string of women’s self-help groups that grow medicinal plants, faces hiccups at a time when the Kerala government is focusing on Ayurveda to woo tourists this year.
“Chackochan and his people are doing a unique job. The entire team deserves applause,” says CN Anithakumari, deputy director of Kerala Tourism, the state’s tourism board.
Ayurveda helps the southern state that sends the highest number of Indian workers in the Gulf region to attract more visitors and retain its unique position in India’s tourism map.
“For the past 15 years or so, Kerala has increasingly come to be seen as the home of Ayurveda. Kerala is today synonymous with Ayurveda,” said Suman Billa, the state government’s secretary for tourism.
Kerala received a whopping 10.7 million domestic and 793,000 foreign tourists in 2012. Officials expect an increase of around 10 percent growth in foreign tourist arrivals and around eight percent rise in the case of domestic arrivals this year.
“Ayurveda played a major role in making tourists spend 18.2 days on an average here, which is more than double the national average. If you remove Ayurveda, Kerala can be covered in a week or 10 days,” he said.
On his part, Chackochan’s factory plant is certified as per the norms of the HACCP (Hazards Analysis and Critical Control Points) to process raw materials and convert them into Ayurvedic medicines and food products.
“Organic farming involves greater discretion in the techniques. We ensure that fertilizer in upland plots don’t trickle into ours,” he adds.
In his rugged land, which is not far from Karnataka border, Chackochan’s organization grows 700-odd herbs and medicinal plants, besides fruits and vegetables — with the participation of some 2,000 farmers.
“We work to make people aware of the ill-effects of chemical fertilizer-based farming. Our aims are to bring farmers under an umbrella, educate them and motivate them to opt for eco-friendly and sustainable organic farming methods,” says the organizer, whose agricultural family settled upstate in the 1940s after migrating from their native Elanji village in central Kerala.
In fact, Vanamoolika also helps organic farmers sell their produce at a good price by facilitating a buyback system when it comes to organic herbs and medicinal plants.
“We pay the farmers a fair price before processing various organic medicines and health products,” says another top functionary PM Kumaran. “Inadequate marketing support is one problem facing Vanmoolika. We are trying hard to overcome it”.
The MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, which has a chapter in Wayanad district, stresses the need for an “assured market” for the growers of herbs. “Ideally, they need to tie up with the top manufacturers of Ayurveda medicines to hope for a business that won’t earn them losses,” notes Dr. V V Sivan, who is a senior scientist with the MSSRF in placid Puthoorvayal.
He says it is “virtually impossible” to start the cultivation of medicinal plants on a massive basis in a thickly populated state like Kerala where availability of land is very limited.
Knowing well the hurdles within the system, Chackochan has built a few cottages in his farmland for tourists to stay and researchers to get first-hand information about medicinal plants.
Among them is a “medicinal hut”, which is built from planks of 30 trees of Ayurvedic importance. What’s more, the villa has an ornate cot carved with 72 kinds of medicinal trees.
Earlier, for three years until 2011, Vanamoolika ran a certified diploma course on Ayurvedic massaging in a professional way. “We closed it because many students began thinking that it was a waste of time to learn a trade which others offered in six or even three months’ time,” reveals Chackochan.
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Concert in herbal gardens
Down the hills of Wayanad, in a quiet locality surrounding a vintage temple not far from the bustling Kozhikode city on the Malabar Coast, Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri runs a music school that seeks to explore the age-old link between Yoga and Ayurveda.
The Swathi Thirunal Kala Kendram at Thiruvannur, which is now more than two decades old and gives training to 400-odd students in vocals and instruments, strives to propound the famed Time Theory in Indian classical music in a bid to provide rejuvenation for the human mind.
“There are ragas (melody scales) that lend a particularly positive effect to the listener if rendered at the ideal time of day — pre-dawn, morning, noon, afternoon, evening, night, et al,” says the classical vocalist, who is more popular as a lyricist in contemporary Malayalam cinema. “It is much like one of those Yoga postures. It helps you regulate blood pressure and puff in oxygen content. Pain and strain diminish.”
In 2006, Kaithapram, as he is known, took out his students in batches to present music recitals for the inmates of mental patients at the hospital in nearby Kuthiravattam. “The initial response was blank. They would just hang their heads down,” he recalls. “Then, in the next few rounds, they started keenly listening in to the music. Some later started joining us on the stage. We ended up doing a series of 30 concerts.”
Seven years later, Kaithapram today looks forward to presenting a music program at an herbal garden in Beypore, also near Kozhikode. “Possibly one such show will happen at Vythiri as well — up in Wayanad,” he adds.
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