ISSN: 2474-8846
Authors: Utkarsh Ghate
Medicinal Plants trade has grown by 100% to over 0.6 million ton/ year in the past 2 decades in India mainly due to the growth in the consumption of cultivated herbs such as Mint, Holy Basil, Indian Ginseng and spices. Wild medicinal plants comprised 70-80% of the raw material (about 0.3 million ton/year) in 20th century. About 200 i.e. 25% of the highly traded species (800) face overharvest driven extinction risk. However, emergence of the herbal industry (single, simple species) besides the growth of the traditional Ayurvedic industry (multi-species, complex) doubled the cultivation stock share to 50% e.g. Psyllium and Drumstick. Polyphenols are the emerging bioactive principles in the herbs, as the key drivers of the medicinal effect, besides erstwhile alkaloids and steroidal saponins etc. that won fame earlier. Hence, various eco-agri-techniques to increase polyphenol contents in herbs are identified viz. a) varietal breeding, b) organic inputs, c) mycorrhiza/ bio-fertilizers, d) micronutrients, e) cultural/ agronomic practices f) elicitors. Such agri-techniques can improve the active ingredient especially polyphenol content by 50% to 100% and is profitable for the manufacturing industry and the farmers. Indian Government has supported medicinal plants cultivation for the last 2 decades especially of the threatened herbs but it needs to improve by natural farming (NF) techniques and labeling the ingredient content, safety parameters with industry partnership and species in export demand.
Keywords: Medicinal Plants; Ecorestoration; Natural Farming; Health; Phytochemicals
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