In India

Plants are used as a source to cure human ailments since times immemorial and reknowned "Ayurveda and Siddhasystems of medicine" developed in India depend on medicinal plants for their raw material.

Plants have been a major source of therapeutic agents for alleviation or cure of human diseases since ages. These are extensively utilized throughout the world in two distinct areas of health management i.e.

1. Traditional or Indigenous Systems of Medicine or Folk medicine.
2. Modern System of Medicine.

At present there are about 130 clinically useful prescription drugs of known chemical structure and used in Modern System of Medicine and solely derived from about 100 species of higher plants. In view of the tremendous demand for plants throughout the world for medicine, phytochemicals, nutraceuticals, cosmoceuticals and other products, they have become an important sector of trade and commerce.

Medicinal and aromatic plants constitute a large segment of the flora, which provide raw materials for use by pharmaceutical, cosmetic, fragrance and flavour industries.

It has been estimated that India is endowed with about 47,000 species of plants and is ranking eighth in the world biodiversity. Out of these 8,000 species are known to be medicinal. Indian system of Medicine (ISM) use around 2,500 plant species belonging to more than 1,000 genera. About 800 species are used by industry, of which approximately 25% are cultivated.

As per an estimate of WHO, about 80% of the population of developing countries rely on traditional medicine, mostly plant-based drugs for their primary health care. Moreover, 20% of US $ 380 billion prescription drugs are presently derived from plants. An additional US $ 8-10 billion market size exists for plant based over-the-counter drugs and herbal teas.

Indian market size for plant based crude drugs is about Rs.4300 crores beside annual export of about Rs.1300 crores mostly through export of Isabgol, Senna, Henna and other raw herbs.

In Germany & France, many herbs and herbal entracts are used as prescription drugs and their sales in the Eropean union amounts to US $ 6 billion in 1981 and may be over US $ 20 billion by now. Even in USA, hearbal drugs are Currently sold in health food stores with a turn over of US $4 billion in 1996. Herbal Medicines also find market as nutraceuticals (health foods) whose current market is estimated at about US $80-250 billion in USA and also in Europe.

According to a recent estimate of Planning Commission, Government of India, potential for plant based crude drugs exists for Rs.40,000 crores. A Task Force constituted by the Planning Commission has laid out strategies to improve export of herbal products to the tune of Rs.10,000 billion by 2010 besides meeting the domestic needs. Globally, the demand for medicinal plants and their derivatives is growing at a rate of 7-15% per annum (as estimated by Exim Bank) on account of the fact that they are non-narcotics having little or no side effects.

Similarly, some 1300 plant species are known to contain aromas. Though such a large number of plants possess aromas, only about 65 plant species have large and consistent demand in the World Trade and are accordingly cultivated in different parts of the globe. Global flavour and fragrance market size is about US $ 15 billion. India ranks second with about 21% share of US $ 922 million estimated world production of essential oils (excluding terpentine oil) in 1999. World production of essential oils is estimated at about 1,10,000 tonnes and India ranks third with a share of about 16%. Most of these oils being produced by India are meant for processing and ample opportunities are available for utilizing these oils for value addition.

India because of its vast geographical areas, large bio-diversity and a wide variety of soil and climate, is an ideal place for cultivation of a large number of essential oil bearing plants.

One of the widely commended achievements of the country in the recent years is the provision of technologies for sustainable production of menthol mint oil, which has enabled India to become global leader catering to about 80% of world demand equivalent to Rs.6.40 billion in terms of cost of the essential oil alone. Besides menthol mint, agro technologies have been developed for a number of medicinal and aromatic crops which either being exported or have the export potential. India has enormous potential of cultivating these crops in varied soils and agro climatic zones particularly in the context of globalization of world economy.

An effort has been made to provide crop-wise relevant information to the growers for crop diversification, income generation, poverty alleviation, value addition, export promotion, etc. through organized cultivation.

The increasing demand of medicinal plant based products have created problems of supply of raw materials and one of the major difficulties being faced by the industries and entrepreneurs is that of obtaining sufficient quantities of raw materials of desired quality for the internal consumption as well as for export.

To address this situation, measures are needed to promote the cultivation and domestication of medicinal plants. There is also an urgent need to improve post-harvest processing, storage and enforce effective quality control and regulate the commerce in order to make a significant dent in the world market.

MAPs and their various isolates/aroma chemicals are some of the most important and essential segments of food, flavours, fragrance, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and related industries worldwide. The present pattern of production and trade of MAPs is characterized by factors such as flactuations in demand, prices, competitiveness, instability in supplies with progressive increase in the numbers of production in many developing and industrialized countries.