President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam will inaugurate a three-day international conference on medicinal and aromatic plants in Hyderabad on March 15. Being organised by Swami Ramanand Thirtha Institute of Socio-Economic Research and National Integration, the conference would be attended by more than 2,000 delegates, including farmers, scientists, technologists, researchers from bio-pharma industries, representatives of commercial institutions and government agencies, from all over the country.

Representatives from foreign countries like USA, UK, Russia, Australia, and New Zealand would take part in the deliberations.

While Dr D N Tiwari, member, Planning Commission, will deliver the keynote address, Union Health Minister Sushma Swaraj will address the valedictory address. Governor Surjeet Singh Barnala and Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu will also take part in the inaugural function.

Giving details of the conference, former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao, the patron of the organizing committee, stressed the need for a sustained campaign among farmers that they could earn good profits by cultivating medicinal and aromatic plants. In tune with the objective, Narasimha Rao, who is also the founder chairman of the Institute, said the conference from March 15 to 17 at Shilpakala Vedika, in the Hitech City at Madhapur, would mark the beginning of a long-term programme to develop the necessary institutionalised and continuing education and research in the area of medicinal and aromatic plants.

Rao said China was exporting herbal medicines worth over Rs 30,0000 crore and Cambodia Rs 11,000 crore, whereas India's exports amounted to just Rs 400 crore. The Institute had taken up this issue as a major thrust area in order to bring awareness among the farmers and encouraging them to take up this activity. The subjects that would be discussed at the conference include collection, cultivation and conservation of medicinal plants, cultivation of commercially viable plants, organic farming and post-harvest technology, cultivation of specific aromatic plants and marketing. All these issues would be discussed at the technical sessions during the three-day deliberations. The conference would have 7 technical sessions and over 100 scientific papers would be presented.

The former Prime Minister pointed out that there was nothing new about the cultivation and use of medicinal plants. The ancient texts spoke about the range of plants available in the Nallamalla Hill range. The Institute's effort was to revive the knowledge about these plants and promote their cultivation.

Narasimha Rao felt that small farmers could earn income equivalent to traditional crops by taking up cultivation of medicinal plants like Aswangandha, an anti-cancer plant, instead of tobacco, a carcinogenic plant.

Rao expressed concern at the speed with which some of the age-old and most commonly used herbs and plants such as Neem and Tulsi were being patented abroad. But the governments, both at the Centre and the states, and the people should be blamed for this as they did not heed repeated calls for the last 8 years, ever since the country joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO), to patent whatever knowledge was available locally and also that had been known to the countrymen for centuries.