• About NRCMAP
• Mandate
• Objectives

• Mandate Crops
• Crop Improvement
• Crop Production
• Crop Protection
• Germplasm
• Field Gene Bank
• Research Projects
• Publications
• Market
• Farmers Gallery
• Annual Reports
• Newsletters
• Webmail for staff

Welcome 

Traditional medicaments, derived from plants for thousands of years, are now yielding their secrets and finding important roles in modern medicine. More than three quarters of the world’s population relies mainly on plants and plant extracts for health care. Of the 250,000 higher plant species on earth, more than 80,000 are having medicinal value. Traditional medicine is widespread throughout the world; it is an integral part of each individual culture. India’s use of plants for health care dates back close to 5000 years. About 8000 herbal remedies have been codified in the Ayurveda, which is in use in many dispensaries today.

World population in the current growth rate is likely to reach 11.5 billion by the year 2020. Rise in population, inadequate supply of drugs in certain parts of the world, prohibitive cost of treatment for common ailments, side effects of several allopathic drugs in current usage and development of resistance to currently used drugs for infectious disease have lead to increased emphasis on the use of plant materials as source of medicines for the wide variety of human ailments. India due to its wide range of geographical, ecological and biological diversities possesses many species that are directly or indirectly used as sources of herbal, allopathic or homeopathic medicines. However, many of these plant species are facing threats of extinction due to over and improper exploitation, habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation of land, urbanization pressure and our ignorance about them. On other hand, the increasing global demand for herbal medicine and products warrants accelerated cultivation, marketing and conservation of medicinal plant. Hence, the scientific study of traditional medicines, derivation of drugs through bioprospecting and systematic conservation of the concerned medicinal plants are of great importance. The major draw back in this area is scarcity of comprehensive and authoritative information on medicinal plants, which hinders an assessment of their status of availability, implementation activities necessary for preserving their habitat and monitoring the effect of rehabilitative efforts. Unless a concerted effort is made to record the knowledge of practitioners of indigenous medicines, it is very likely that vital information on plant usages, their characteristics and habitats will be lost.

Further, medicinal and aromatic plants (MAP) have considerable potential both in national and international market. Our country has to increase its contribution to meet the growing demand by supplying high quality MAPs and its products. It will help earning foreign exchange and strengthen the economy of the country and there are tremendous possibilities of increasing the production and trade of MAP, both for internal consumption and export. But it calls for an integrated and continuous effort in conservation, sustainable utilization, cultivation, maintenance and production of medicinal plant resources. In India, efforts are already initiated for conservation of medicinal plants in-situ and ex-situ conservation for example under ex-situ conservation, a number of field and seed gene bank has been created. Hundreds of plant and medical based central and state Government research institutions including NGOs are involved in research activities on MAPs (but isolated manner) and adding knowledge day by day.

Since the establishment of National Research Centre for Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (NRCMAP) by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) on 24th November, 1992 systematic and sincere efforts are being made to bring a vital change in some identified MAPs. Even though struggled initially, NRCMAP along with its out reach programme on All India Networking Research Project on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (AINRPMAP) and All India Networking Research Project on Betelvine (AINRPB) has unfurled its wing on functioning mode and continuing several steps toward the vibrant research on some selected MAPS.

 

News

 

95% purity Aloin of "Aloe barbadensis" available in bulk.

Interested buyers may send their price on our E-mail ID : nrcmap@gmail.com or by Post.

                                     January - June 2008 Newsletter (View / Download PDF)