Medicinal Crops of Africa
The great biodiversity in the tropical
forests, savannahs, and velds and unique environments of sub-Sahara Africa has
provided indigenous cultures with a diverse range of plants and as a
consequence a wealth of traditional knowledge about the use of the plants for
medicinal purposes. Given that Africa includes over 50 countries, 800
languages, 3,000 dialects; it is a veritable treasure of genetic resources
including medicinal plants. While the medicinal plant trade continues to grow
globally, exports from Africa contribute little to the overall trade in natural
products and generally only revolve around plant species of international
interest that are indigenous to Africa. Africa is only a minor player in the
global natural products market. We identified several key challenges facing the
natural products sector in this region.
These include the
presently limited value-addition occurring within region and as a consequence
exports tend to be bulk raw materials; local markets generally largely selling
unprocessed/semi-processed plant materials; the industry is large but informal
and diffuse and there is limited financial resources to support research and
infrastructure for both the processor and a distinct but equally important
issue in the lack of financial credit available in general to the farmer in
much of this region for production investments; lack of private sector
investment in processing and packaging facilities; and serious issues in parts
of this region surround common property resource issues (ownership and rights
to land tenure; threat of over-harvesting, etc.). In addition, there is limited
technical support is available to growers,
collectors, &
post-harvest firms, limited expertise on appropriate germplasm and seed
availability, inadequate and/or lack of processing equipment. This has resulted
in a lack of or inadequate quality control and lack of product standardization.
There is a very limited knowledge of foreign market demand, few market/business
contacts and the
perception that there is difficulty in protecting their intellectual property.
The objective of this
paper is to present an overview to some of the leading African medicinal plants
in sub-Sahara Africa that are in the international trade, plus an introduction
to a number of lesser-known promising medicinal plants (Table 1).
