Empowerment of medicinal and aromatic plants stakeholders through institutional capacity building

Abstract

The study attempts to determine the capacity building needs of the medicinal and aromatic plants (MAP) farmers emphasizing three major thematic areas. Data was collected from thirty-four progressive farmers from Karnataka who had attended capacity building program on cultivation and conservation of medicinal and aromatic crops. Analysis of study revealed that 45% farmers were in middle age category (30-39 years), 41% of them had land holding up to 5 acres, and 21% between 5.1 to 10 acres. Under cultivation needs of medicinal and aromatic plants, farmers’ priority was to get training on “Integrated pest and disease management” with a weighed score (WS)of 2.68. Under processing needs “Training on value addition in medicinal crops” (WS 2.47). With respect to marketing needs of MAP farmers the most important training needs were “Marketing intelligence” (WS 2.44). The most important constraints felt by the respondents were “Inadequate incentives for cultivation of MAPs (74%). The most important suggestion felt by cent per cent respondents was “Need for organized markets” for MAPs. The investigation inferred that there is a critical need to plan and design regular capacity building programs in identified thematic areas to fulfill the knowledge gap among the medicinal and aromatic plant growers of Karnataka to enable them a sustainable income