Vetiver has traditionally been used as medicinal and aromatic
plants in many countries, especially in Asia. Recently it has
received widespread recognition as being an ideal plant for
soil and water conservation as well as environmental
protection. This, however, has met with difficulty in
promoting vetiver grown as hedgerows for soil and water
conservation since the farmers complain that they do not
obtain any direct benefit (i.e. cash return) from planting
vetiver. However, it is argued that the indirect benefits the
farmers could obtain are enormous. It ends with the
discussion on the main objective of planting vetiver,
environmental implication, socio-economic aspects, and
industrial potentials. As a campaign to go ‗back to nature‘ is
everywhere, the utilization of vetiver as a medicinal plant to
produce pharmaceutical products on a commercial scale has
great potential for development. A new concept, that of
growing vetiver as an income generating plant, has recently
been launched by the Royal Project Foundation of Thailand.
This approach in interesting since vetiver provides a very
good income to the farmers if grown specifically for its roots