Planting Against Poverty
ICIMOD is implementing a project to tap the potential of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants and use them to tackle poverty
By A CORRESPONDENT
About 20,000 tons of medicinal and aromatic plants (MAP) worth US$18-20 million are traded every year in Nepal alone, and about 90% are harvested in uncontrolled fashion. The situation is similar in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and other countries of South Asia, and 90% of the plants from Nepal are exported to India in raw form.
For landless, resource-poor mountain farmers, often, the harvest and trade in medicinal plants constitutes their only form of cash income.
With the objective of tapping their potential and use them to overcome poverty, the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) is implementing a project in three South Asian countries including Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.
“Considering the increasing value of medicinal and aromatic plants, both in terms of primary health care and as a critical source of livelihoods and income for the rural poor in the region, ICIMOD with support from the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC), The Netherlands is implementing a four-year, US$1.68 million ‘Medicinal Plants and Herbs: Developing Sustainable Supply Chain and Enhancing Rural Livelihoods in the Eastern Himalayas’ Project in three countries,” states a press release from the ICIMOD.
ICIMOD’s Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Program in Asia (MAPPA) is the project’s implementing agency, with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s Intergovernmental Sub-Group on Tropical Fruits providing a supervisory role.
In Nepal, the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation, Government of Nepal, is the nodal agency in Nepal, with the Herbs and Non-Timber Forest Products Coordination Committee, Nepal working with partners to implement the project in Western Nepal.
“The project’s overall objective is to conserve natural resources, reduce poverty, and improve livelihoods for mountain communities of the Himalayan region through the sustainable development and utilization of high-value, low-volume medicinal and aromatic plants. A recently concluded three-day inception workshop in April launched the project with implementing partners in the three countries,” the release adds.
At the inception workshop, ICIMOD and experts from India shared latest trends and organic practices in MAPs cultivation and processing as well as emerging value supply chains practices here and in other countries. “Through the workshop, each country’s nodes and partners sat down and consulted with MAP experts on their individual country plans. The country plans are now being refined after the consultations.”
According to ICIMOD, the greater Himalayan region, in fact, holds the comparative advantage of being home to many medicinal and aromatic plants found only in the region. The region also has various well-developed practices in traditional medicines (Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, among others) based on indigenous knowledge of these plants’ medicinal and healing properties. “Considering the global trade in medicinal and aromatic plants – now a US$60 billion industry and still growing, especially with the increasing demand worldwide for herbal medicines – the potential of MAPs to provide relief from poverty in South Asia, where 40% of the world’s poor reside, is tremendous, if it can be tapped.”
ICIMOD is an international independent Mountain Learning and Knowledge Centre serving eight regional countries of the Hindu Kush-Himalayas and the global mountain community. Founded in 1983, ICIMOD is based in Kathmandu , Nepal , and brings together a partnership of regional member countries, over 300 institutions within and outside the region, and donors with a commitment for development action to secure the future of the Hindu Kush-Himalayas.
The ICIMOD Overall Strategic Plan (2003-2007) has identified the following six integrated programs - Natural Resource Management (NRM); Agriculture and Rural Income Diversification (ARID); Water, Hazards, and Environmental Management (WHEM); Culture, Equity, Gender and Governance (CEGG); Policy and Partnership (PP); and Information and Knowledge Management (IKM).
ICIMOD member countries include Afghanistan , Bangladesh , Bhutan , China , India , Myanmar , Nepal and Pakistan .
