With the varied climatic conditions that are conducive to medical and aromatic plants, India is in a position to habitate more than 8000 herbal plants with medicinal value. If the country tries to explore the export potential of this segment, herbal farming is the most promising area to focus on, says Dr. Chandrakant Kokate, former president, Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) and currently vice-chancellor of Kakatiya University.

Revealing the vital statistics, he said there are about 20,000 medicinal and ayurvedic plants in the third world countries and 1.7 million species of living organisms, which are scientifically registered. The total production of herbal drugs in India accounts to about Rs. 2,800 crore. One third of it is being exported to developing countries. The total production of herbal drugs in 2000 in US has been US$ 30 billion and nutraceuticals is over US$ 7.5 billion.

However, it is unfortunate that majority of the Indian Ayurvedic companies are not keen to adopt GMP norms. Government has been convincing the ayurvedic manufacturers of the importance of maintaining quality. Bio-efficacy of herbal drugs should properly be studied.

Post 2005, with the new patent regime knocking the doors of the industry, standardization would become a key issue, particularly to meet the export needs. And accountability in ayurvedic and herbal products is going to be put under scrutiny.

India has been able to supply drugs to African and other Asian countries. Whereas, Chinese formulations are able to make way in the US. Indian manufacturers should strive to make their products internationally acceptable. For instance, US has put up rigid conditions for importing herbal drugs from developing countries, including India.

He opined, unless quality control is ensured, Ayurvedic products manufactured in India will find it difficult to enter untapped international markets. Polyherbal formulations cannot be developed without following proper quality control methods. He added, herbal ingredients have a lot of scope. India can become a botanical garden for the world due to its diversity of flora in India. Countries like Germany and France have recognized the importance of herbal drugs and today about 40 per cent of the drugs manufactured in these countries come from herbal segment.

He said that smuggling of natural wealth from developing countries is also rampant today. Pointing out instances like two NRIs who were working in US universities smuggling turmeric and went upto patenting it during 1996, and with the efforts of some eminent scientists such as Dr RA Mashelkar, it was de-patented, he cautioned that India should keep an eye on such activities.