Sacred groves have survived very long without human interference, and thus are of anthropological, cultural, economic, and ecological significance. In India, these groves are concentrated in the North-East and along the Western Ghats, both globally recognised hotspots of biodiversity. Unfortunately, their size and number are now shrinking at an alarming rate, and it is high time a workable solution is found to sustain them.

Agriculture is the backbone of the Indian economy which plays the most decisive role in the socioeconomic development of the country. Indian agriculture is a miscellaneous and extensive sector involving a large number of actors. India has one of the largest and institutionally most complex agricultural research systems in the world. The agricultural research system in India includes some 27,500 scientists and more than one lakh supporting staff actively engaged in agricultural research, which makes it probably the largest research system in the world.