Homestead herbal gardens (HHG) of medicinal plants for primary health care and primary veterinary care has been initiated across the states of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu facilitated by women self-help groups and reputed NGOs. 1,50,000 HHG have been established thus far.

HHG package is a self-help package to meet the Primary Health Care (PHC) needs of rural communities in the villages. The package consists of training on the use of 20 carefully selected medicinal plants (comprising of 10 to 15 eco-system specific species) for relieving PHC-related complaints at the household level as a first response.

The HHG programme has been targeted at resource-poor rural women and their families in general and also their livestock.

The HHG programme facilitated awareness on the role of home remedies for preventive, promotive and curative care for primary health care-related complaints such as cold, cough, fever, diahorrea, menstrual problems and skin conditions. A few nutritionally important medicinal plant species such as guava, pomegranate, papaya, drumstick and curry leaves have also been included in the HHG package that enables rural households to add nutritional value to the rural diet at no extra cost and effort. It also helped the rural households to save on the primary health care-related expenses through use of home remedies as a first response to a health problem at the household level.

Home Herbal Garden concept has also integrated animal health needs as a part of the programme. This has been adopted by the district milk unions of Dakshina Kannada, Kolar, Shimoga, Hassan and Tumkur. An exercise of documentation and rapid assessment of ethno-veterinary practices followed by expert pashu-vaidyas in the above districts was undertaken prior to the promotion of the use of home remedies for animal health care.

FRLHT launched the Amruth HomeGarden Programme in Bangalore on 18 February 2005. The programme primarily involves making a mosaic of carefully selected healing plants available to the city dwellers for use as first response to take care of their primary health care needs.

The plants under Amruth HomeGarden programme have been selected based on their use value, ease of use, safety, efficacy and ornamental appeal. These plants do not require any specifically earmarked areas and can add their colour and rejuvenating value to the available nooks and corners of the household. The 21 plant species selected under the programme have been formed into packages of 7, 14 and 21 species keeping in view space availability in different households. Similar packages containing upto 40 plant species - some of these being trees - have also been developed for Institutions.

Each of the Amruth HomeGarden package includes a set of plants and a User's Guide. These nominally priced packages can be procured from FRLHT's 'Amruth Nursery'. All subscribers of the programme can have one free health check by expert vaidyas at the FRLHT clinic and 10% discount on all FRLHT publications.