Challenges Ahead

Thirty per cent poorest of the poor tribal people of these drought-prone areas mainly depend on such herbal plants for caring their various ailments. More than 90 per cent of the farming communities in West Bengal are small marginal, illiterate and lying below the poverty level having very subsistence farming with their small fragmented holdings. There is lack of entrepreneurship, agro-processing industries, standardization units, marketing facilities along with support price, by-back systems of the produce and paucity of infrastructure for development process of the products.
Hence, awareness and proper training programme on cultivation, preservation, processing and contractual farming of al these herbal produce should be tied up with the pharmaceutical and cosmetics producing industries.

Most of these common people are still out of reach to survive against the diseases using home made raw herbal plants. Their roots, leaves, barks and stems, etc are of commercial value. Commercial venture of cultivation of all these herbal plants are the utmost need of the day as per demand of the Medicinal, pharmaceutical and Cosmetic Companies like Dabar, Emami, Baidyanath, Dey's Medical, the Himalayan Drugs, etc. Organic farming is now a global interest of all agricultural crops including these herbal plants expanding markets for plants based raw materials of herbal products for manufacture of drug Pharmaceuticals, perfumery products, cosmetics and aromatic compounds for flavoring various food items. Qualitative product is now the only demand of the global scenario fetching high commerce on the same without having any hazard of residual toxicity due to indiscriminate use of agro-chemicals, pesticides and fertilizers, etc.