The Ayurvedic Drug Manufacturers Association (ADMA) will soon launch its ambitious Herbal Mandi project of medicinal herbs and plants, which will be on the lines of 'Multi Commodity Exchange' to help the medicinal plant growers get right price for their herbs.

Under the project, the buyer and growers or cultivators of medicinal plants will meet and the growers will discover the price of their produce in a true market situation, through internet/web, and in the local language.

"Lack of access to the market becomes a major problem to the herbal growers. This platform will help the cultivators get the right price for their products. The Mandis will work on true price realisation mechanism," said ADMA spokesman Shashank Sandu, who is the brain behind the project.

That the project will evoke good response from the growers was evident from the fact that around 120 farmers participated to sell 200 medicinal plants at the 'Mock Herbal Mandi' run by ADMA, in association with National Medicinal Plants Board (NMPB), at the second Assocham Herbal International Summit, held in New Delhi recently.

In the first phase, the project will be launched in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh and in the second stage it will be extended to states like Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. Initially, only medicinal plants and herbs would be traded on the exchange and the aromatic plants will be listed later, said Sandu who is also the director, Sandu Pharmaceuticals.

The major objective of the project is to have a meeting platform for the cultivators/growers of medicinal plants which will lead to price discovery mechanism for the cultivators of their produce in a transparent mode. The Herbal Mandis will also be a good platform for the cultivators and the buyers as it will provide an essential linkage by promoting a medicinal plants market place for forward linkages for communities, collectors, farmers and grower clusters with user industry and allied trade in interest of firm off-take for medicinal plants collected and harvested.

These Mandis will help upgrade positioning of Indian herbal industry in the value chain, through good quality of raw material and will also encourage export of only value-added products in the value chain. It will also help to establish a model for certified medicinal plants to enter the trade.