Good Agricultural Practices

GOOD AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES

Depending on the method of cultivation different Standard Operating Procedures for cultivation should be followed by the cultivators. A suitable area for the cultivation and the standard operation procedures for the cultivation should be developed depending upon the needs of the plants. Medici-nal and aromatic plants should not be grown in soils which are contaminated by sludge and not contaminated by heavy metals, residues of plant protection products and any other unnatural chemicals, so the chemical products (pesticide and herbicide) used should be with as minimum negative effect as possible, human faeces should be avoided. Depending upon the soil fertility and the nutritional requirement of medicinal plants the type of the fertilizer and the amount of the fertilizer to be used is determined. Products for chemical plant protection have to conform to the European Union’s maximum residue limits. Proper irrigation and drainage should be earned out according to the climatic condition and soil moisture. The soil used for cultivation should be well aerated. The use of pesticides and herbicides has to be documented. Irrigation should be minimized as much as possible and only be applied according to the needs of the plant. Water used for irrigation should be free from all possible forms of contaminants and should comply with national and European Union quality standards. The area for cultivation should be strictly prohibited from the con-taminations like house garbage, industrial waste, hospital refuse and feces. Field management should be strengthened and proper measures like pruning, shading etc. should be provided for increasing the yield of the active constituent and maintain the consistency of the yield. The pests used should give high efficacy, hypotoxicity, and low residue at the minimum effective input so that the residue of pesticides are also reduced and protected from ecological environment.

Application and storage of plant protection products have to be in conformity with the regulations of manufacturers and the respective national authorities. The application should only be earned out by qualified staff using approved equipment. The nutrient supply and chemical plant protec-tion, should secure the marketability of the product. The buyer of the batch should be informed about the brand, quantity and date of pesticide use in written.

Though several countries in the world have a rich heri-tage of herbal drugs, very few have their claim for their procurement of crude drugs only from cultivated species. Our reliance on wild sources of crude drugs and the lack of information on the sound cultivation and maintain-ing technology of crude drugs have resulted in gradual depletion of raw material from wild sources. Though the cultivation of medicinal plants offers wide range of advantages over the wild sources, it can be an uneconomi-cal process for some crude drugs which occur abundantly in nature e.g. nux vomica, acacia etc. On the other hand, crude drugs like cardamom, clove, poppy, tea, cinchona, ginger, linseed, isabgol, saffron, peppermint, fennel, etc. are obtained majorly from cultivated plants. The cultiva-tion of crude drugs involves keen knowledge of various factors from agricultural and pharmaceutical sphere, such as soil, climate, rainfall, irrigation, altitude, temperature, use of fertilizers and pesticides, genetic manipulation and biochemical aspects of natural drugs. When all such factors are precisely applied, the new approach to scientific cultiva-tion technology emerges out.