By NKIRUKA NNOROM

The Raw Material Research and Development Council, RMRDC, has emphasized the need for the Federal Government to formulate policies that will enhance development of herbal industry and facilitate the judicial and sustainable utilization of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, MAPs.

The council also said there is need for rapid enhancement of research, development and commercialization of ‘such natural medicinal products in Nigeria where similar natural forest endowments abound’.

Delivering a paper at the closing ceremony of 2014 HerFest, tagged; “Commercial Cultivation of Nigeria’s MAPs as Raw material for Natural Products Development in Nigeria: Incentives & Challenges”, Director General/CEO, RMRDC, Dr. Hussaini Doko Ibrahim, said that if effectively harnessed, the industry can make a significant contribution to the national GDP.

“The protection given to medicinal plants could be achieved through regulation and the introduction of sustainable wild harvesting methods, but the domestic cultivation is an option that could both reduce pressure on wild populations and solve some of the problems inherent in the production of medicinal plant.

“This ranges from resource management, cultivation, shifting processing from consumer to source countries, species conservation to trade restriction or even trade bans,” he said.

To ensure long term survival of the herbal sector, he said that there is need to collaborate with the traditional practitioners and integrate their practices into modern Research & Development, R&D.

“Despite the various challenges facing processing and marketing of MAPs and their derivative raw materials development, Nigeria can still improve and excel in this virgin area if the issues of serious commitment, energy and resource mobilization as well as government political will are adequately addressed. All Asian countries including China, India and Malaysia started several decades ago from somewhere.

Looking at the global trend and specifically at countries like China, India, Malaysia etc, it is evidently very clear that Nigeria is obviously left behind in natural products R&D,” he said.

World-wide, he said that an estimated 9,000 (nine thousand) medicinal plant species are threatened. “As a result, conservation concepts and measures which have to meet future supply and the provision of species through conservation need to be put in place.”

Speaking on the market potential, he said the global market value of MAP’s is estimated at US$ 75 000-150 000 million annually, while the demand for medicinal plant based raw materials is growing at the rate of 15 to 25 percent annually.

He noted that according to an estimate of WHO, the demand for medicinal plants is likely to increase more to than US $5 trillion in 2050. Speaking, the Director General, Nigeria Natural Medicine Development Agency, NNMDA, Mr. Tamunor Okujagu, said that the herbal industry has the capacity to generate huge income for the country, while calling on the government to put more resources into the sector.

He said that generally the government has put in place several schemes, the small and medium schemes, the micro schemes to support entrepreneurs, adding that recently the government mapped N220 billion into this kind of scheme.