CULTIVATION OF MEDICINAL PLANTS FOR THE BENEFIT OF MARGINAL WOMEN FARMERS IN BHIMA CATCHMENT AREA.

Dr. Sujata Tetali,  Dr. Kishori Apte and Mr. Anant Gogte  
Gram Vardhini, Pune (Maharashtra).

The Western Ghats is not only rich in biodiversity but also a home for many tribal communities. Because of geographical isolation and many other reasons, even the primary needs of these tribal communities are not fulfilled. They pass through many hardships. Bhima catchment area, in the backwaters of the Chaskaman dam in Khed Taluka of Pune district of Maharashtra state is home for Mahadeo koli Community. Their main occupation is farming.  They practice shifting cultivation and other income generation sources include cattle rearing, collection of honey and medicinal plants such as Terminalia chebula, T. bellerica, Acacia concinna etc. and wild fruits. Income generation from forest produce is not significant. Due to destructive harvesting of forest wealth natural resource base has shrunk considerably in the last two decades. This has directly affected their way of life.

Women in particular are the first victims of this shrinking resource base, since women are involved in harvesting most of the forest produce and collecting fuel wood. Added to this, they are not accessible to recent advances in science, which can help them generate more income and in turn improve of quality of their life.

Keeping the existing problem of tribal women folk in mind, we wanted to enhance income generation capacity and revitalize the sustainable agricultural practices. We envisaged it involves a multidisciplinary and multi institutional support.

Cultivation of medicinal plants especially high value medicinal plants is creating new dimension in the field of agriculture. For women having marginal land holding, it will be beneficial if they cultivate high value medicinal plants and process them to some extent with the help of experts’ supervision.  Therefore some of their land may be utilized for producing high value medicinal plants. Initially, while talking about these schemes, a participatory Rural Appraisal exercise was carried out for identifying the acceptance of idea of this project. Some of the women showed willingness to plant medicinal plants.

Periwinkle, C. roseus has been recognized as one of the most important plants for medicinal use. It is a hardy plant. At present more than 100 alkaloids have been isolated from various parts of this plant. Vinblastine sulphate, one of the important alkaloids used in the treatment of various types of cancers is isolated from its leaves.  

Camptothecin is isolated from Nothapodytes foetida. It is used as bulk intermediate for making anti-cancer & anti HIV drugs.  

Vinblastine from Catharanthus. roseus and Camptothecin from Nothapodytes foetida have been identified as two anticancer plant drugs. Cultivation and extraction of anticancer chemicals involves lot of scientific and technical inputs. We involved various organizations such as National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, to take these technologies to people, which is already available with them.

The farmers have been trained to cultivate C. roseus. Plantation and harvesting techniques have been taught to them.

Department of science and Technology, Government of India is financially supporting Gram Vardhini for this project. 

Once the project is successful, we expect more villagers to take up medicinal plant cultivation. This will help change their attitude from collection to cultivation.