BACKGROUND
MEDICINAL PLANTS - Sustainability of the herbal industry
The
herbal industry in India is enormous (estimated annual turnover of 500
million US$) and the trends suggest that it is going to grow much, much
bigger. Although this is good news for the herbal industry, the lack
of sustainable harvesting methods is raising concerns for the future
of many valuable medicinal plant species.
The medicinal properties of most high altitude medicinal plants exist in the root, which means that when they are harvested in the wild, the whole plant, including its root, is pulled out the ground and it cannot grow again the following year. It is because of this, and the growing demand for these herbs from both domestic and foreign markets, that many of the medicinal plants in the Kullu Valley are being over-harvested and threatened in their natural habitat.
The long-term availability of medicinal plants is of vital importance, not just for the herb-collectors who depend on it to earn a living, but also for the future of India's traditional system of medicine, ayurveda, which is rapidly growing in popularity both in India and abroad. Conservation of these plants is therefore of utmost importance.
CONSERVATION THROUGH CULTIVATION / PROPAGATION
It
is increasingly being recognised that the best way to conserve threatened
species of medicinal plants is to develop cultivation / propagation
techniques at the community level and to provide local farmers with
greater access to reliable and profitable markets.
Cultivation of medicinal plants is a relatively new concept to communities in the himalayas, as there has never been a shortage in the mountains before. Now however, villagers are beginning to recognise the threat and understand the potential long-term consequences of over-harvesting medicinal plants, and this is resulting in a growing interest in cultivation.
FAIR TRADE
At
the moment, nearly every local herb collector takes their harvest to
the local markets in Kullu and Bhuntar where they are normally given
from around 20 to 100 rupees per kg. This amount of money is very little
and quite frankly the herbs, and the labour of the herb-collectors,
are worth a lot more. The traders then sell on the herbs through a long
network of middlemen until it eventually reaches large herbal medicine
companies such as Dabur, by which point the herb has become considerably
more expensive.
If local producers were to cultivate these plants instead of collecting them from the wild, it simply wouldn't be economically viable to sell them in the local market. Many of the plants require more than one year to reach full size and the whole process of collecting seeds and growing the plants would take up much more time and effort than it's worth. Therefore, by linking up directly with herb companies and ATOs (alternative trading organisations), we aim to skip out the middlemen and offer a higher price in order to provide greater financial incentives to producers who cultivate the plants.