Efforts to cultivate ‘heeng’ bear fruit as plants flower for first time

Experiments by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to cultivate ‘heeng’ (asafoetida) have borne fruit, with plants flowering in the country for the first time.

The Palampur-based Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology (IHBT) of the CSIR had launched the project in the remote Lahaul and Spiti region of Himachal Pradesh in 2020. A Heeng Seed Production Centre was established in February.

A ‘heeng’ plant requires cold and dry conditions for growth. It takes around five years for the production of oleo-gum resin in its roots, from which edible ‘heeng’, widely used in cuisines and also for medicinal purposes, is extracted. “The aim of the ongoing research and development is to establish a sustainable seed cycle and ensure long-term cultivation success in cold desert regions. This will go a long way in reducing our import dependence on this high-value spice,” the CSIR said on Monday, while terming the process as a breakthrough for indigenous farming.

‘Heeng’ is one of the top condiments and a high value spice crop. India imports around 1,200 tonnes of raw ‘heeng’ annually from Afghanistan, Iran and Uzbekistan at a cost around US Dollar 100 million.

The IHBT had encouraged farmers in the Lahaul valley to take up the cultivation of ‘heeng’ to utilise the vast expanses of waste land in the cold desert conditions of the region. The IHBT brought the seeds of ‘heeng’ and developed its agro-technology.

The lack of planting material of ‘ferula asafoetida’ plants in India was a major bottleneck in the cultivation of this crop. The IHBT had planted the first seedling of ‘heeng’ in October 2020 at a farmer’s field in Kwaring village of the Lahaul valley to mark the initiation of its cultivation in India.

Since ‘heeng’ is a major condiment in Indian cuisines, the IHBT made relentless efforts to introduce this important crop in the country. The institute introduced six accessions of seeds from Iran through the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi. Raw ‘heeng’ is extracted from the fleshy roots of ‘ferula asafoetida’. Though, there are around 130 species of ferula found in the world, only ‘ferula asafoetida’, an economically important species, is used for the production of ‘heeng’. In India, ‘ferula asafoetida’ was not grown. Other species — ‘ferula jaeschkeana’ is found in the Chamba region and ‘ferula narthex’ in Kashmir and Ladakh — but both species do not yield ‘asafoetida’ spice.

Himachal Tribune