Short-term chances for medicinal plant enterprise

Erdész, Ferencné – Kozak, Anita

Keywords: medicinal plant, market, trade, development tasks, outlook.

Nowadays medicinal plants as natural raw materials are very popular on the whole world. Medicinal plants which have been indispensable in developing countries have today their golden age even in most developed societies where again and again new herbs are introduced to the market. The global trade value of medicinal plants is increasing yearly by 7 percent according to the World Bank. In Hungary it would be also profitable to collect and produce herbs and to develope new medicines. Nevertheless, there is just an opposite trend: the area cultivated and the amount of export are decreasing and fewer and fewer people are engaged in collecting herbs.
A further decline of this once prospering activity is neither necessary nor unavoidable. But to impart a new impuls to this chain a series of arrangements stimulating collection, production and processing are necessary. Prior to this a data base should be organised containing real-world data for production and trade. It is also essential to reformulate the legal system which regulates production and marketing to enable well functioning of this chain.