Good agricultural and collection practices of medicinal plants for supply of quality raw herbal drug

Abstract

Good agricultural practices are meant to provide defined and reproducible production management system for affordable and quality supply of raw herbal drug. There is a need to harmonize the raw herbal drug quality requirements under uniform guidelines through strict compliance with good agricultural practice and good medicinal plants during production. The good agricultural practice guidelines and specification for growing and handling medicinal plants need to be an intrinsic part of any quality assurance system for plant based health care programme. To comply with international demands of quality raw herbal drug, the entire production system of medicinal plants must be re-examined. Compressive protocol within suggested frame work of good agricultural practice need to be developed starting with way-bill detailing the cultivation or collection history of plant materials. Developing a process that meets the needs of stakeholder associate with medicinal plant sector is the most important. This will require cooperation from specialist in production, processing, pharmacology and other associated fields. Further, comply with industry needs and international demands, a systemic details protocol for the process of good agricultural practice needs to be established for each medicinal plant species and also for each region.