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Kerala hosts workshop on herbal tourism
and medicinal farming
by Juhan Samuel

        Pathanamthitta (Kochi): Nearly a thousand villagers, many of them amateur farmers, recently attended a workshop on herbal tourism and medicinal farming. Conducted by the Gandhi Smarak Seva Samiti and the National Medicinal Plant Board of India (NMPBI), the day-long seminar explored various methods to conserve and cultivate rare medicinal plants used in the manufacture of traditional Ayurvedic medicines. Participants were given free saplings and told to study markets requiring inputs from medicinal industries.

      Professor S K Narayanan, the principal investigator of the project to save certain indigenous medicinal plants on the verge of extinction, said attempts were being made to save a vanishing species. "We are going to identify certain plants and bring them here to give them full protection. Gradually, we will be distributing these plants to the villagers for propagation and (for reaching out to) the foreign buyers," said Professor Narayanan. After seeing the export potential for medicinal plants, farmers of Kerala are planning to tap the resources to market these products. They have already started diversifying their agriculture activities by going in for small homestead farming. "I was very much interested in planting medicinal plants in my household, and already doing organic farming on my own farmland back home. Medicinal farming is a good way of utilizing my land for this purpose," said John Verghese, a Christian missionary. According to a private study by a voluntary organisation, the international medicinal plant trade is expected to grow to five trillion dollars by the year 2050. Besides health benefits, herbs also provide crucial livelihood options for millions of people in rural India, particularly farmers, women and tribal people. About 90 per cent of the medicinal plants used by the industry are collected from the wild and over 800 species are used in production by the drug manufacturing industry. Medicine production uses various parts of the plants like roots, bark, wood and stem, and at times, the whole plant in case of herbs. With the growing interest in Ayurveda worldwide, there is now an increasing demand for herbal remedies in the United Kingdom and Europe. "As the first step we have started distributing 10,000 medicinal saplings to the nearby villagers with the of National Medicinal Plant Board. Later on, we plan to procure the raw product from them and also on the agenda is a plan to set up an export unit and a processing factory here," said Sudhakaran, the treasurer of the Sarvodaya Kendra, a Mahatma Gandhi Smriti (Memorial) institute. The National Plant Board has already started distributing medicinal plant saplings to farmers and housewives.

     Most physicians are of the view that Kerala's equable climate, natural abundance of forests with a wealth of herbs and medicinal plants, are best suited for Ayurvedic curative and restorative programmes. In India, Ayurveda evolved as a system of medicine around 600 B.C. Though it was found in Himalayas, found roots in Kerala due to favourable climatic conditions. India is among the top eight countries in the export market in medicinal and aromatic products and has the potential to become a world leader in this field. Inadequate research and development plague the ancient industry whose roots go deep down in India's history. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has estimated the traditional medicine market to be at a mammoth 7.5 billion dollars and commercial concern is one of the major drives behind the newfound rush to claim right to the industry. India exports Ayurvedic drugs worth under 5.5 billion rupees (about $120 million) a year and has set an export target of 1.08 billion dollars by 2008. Researches say with 15,000 plant species, India is well placed to increase its share in the market, which is growing by at least 7 percent a year. For bulk of the people in the developing world, traditional medicines provide the main source of affordable health care. In India, an estimated 70 per cent of the population still relies on traditional medicine.
-Nov 15,  2006

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