Vetiver Systems for India and a New "old" Newsletter

I am always saddened that India, the home of the Vetiver plant, has found it difficult to readily use this plant. The Vetiver System could help so many rural people in India, help improve environmental conditions, particularly at this time of climate change, reduce the cost and maintenance of infrastructure, help improve the quality of water, and generally reduce the misery of disasters.  In case you don't realize it soil and water loss from farm land, and polluted soils and water due to industry and agriculture are becoming overwhelming problems effecting the health and livelihood of many - and can be classified as DISASTERS, either current or in the making.  Some folks in India reject VS because they see it coming from western countries.  It did NOT.  Vetiver was first used for soil conservation by Indian farmers before any of us were born, and nearly all of its recent development and extended applications have been researched developed and demonstrated in Africa, Asia and Latin America.  Those who live in these regions should be proud of this work.  Others reject Vetiver because it competes with their own agendas (whether they be technical, commercial, or just plain old fashioned corrupt practices).  I say to these people that you can do more for your country, people, and maybe your business by accepting and using the technology rather than rejecting it and using instead alternatives that either have a short life span or cost five times as much.  Others do not use the technology because they know nothing about it - these are the people that our network is trying to help, but to do this at a faster rate we need help from country institutions, NGOs and the private sector.

We have, for some unknown reason, never published Newsletter # 3 on the TVNI website site. It is the first complete Vetiver Newsletter published in 1990 and contains some very relevant information, particularly about soil and water conservation and results from research by Indian research institutions (3.2MB). It is worth reading. For those of you who have not found the other TVN newsletters - there are some very good ones and that can be found via the newsletter index.

Dick Grimshaw