Fruit Processing Plant

Plants and man are inseparable. Plants existed on the earth in the geological past form the early history of the earth. The use of plants to alleviate human suffering is as old as the evolution of human civilization itself. From the early stages of human civilization, plants, especially medicinal plants have played a pioneering role for the welfare of human beings. Recently, dramatic changes have taken place in the primary health care system of world population through the development of science, technology and medical science, but till to day 400 cores of people of the world are totally dependent on herbal medicine. It is revealed that even in the developed countries 25%, of the prescribed drugs come from plant sources and herbal medicines are used by about 75-80% of the world’s population for primary health care because of their better cultural acceptability, better compatibility with human body and lesser side effects.. WHO consultative body of medicinal plants has formulated a definition of medicinal plants in the following way “A medicinal plant is any plant which in one or more of its organs, contains substances that can be used for therapeutic purposes or which is a precursor for synthesis of useful drugs” (Sofowora,1982).Bangladesh has very rich in Bio-diversity. It has more than 500 medicinal plants species (Yusuf et al., 1994). An alarmingly populous, but size-wise a very small country is rather unique in having diversified genetic resources in a wide range of habitats. Increasing population pressure and multifarious anthropogenic activities on the natural ecosystems are posing severe and serious threats to once dense and rich genetically diversified plant communities of this country. Loss of habitats from the wild forests as well as from the village groves, cultivated plains and wild lands are quite common in this country. A broad genetic base has been replaced by a narrow one, and the old genetic diversity is disappearing both inside and outside of the ancient gene centers. This trend is inevitable with the need for highly efficient and uniform cultivars in advanced and sophisticated farming systems. At present, we have no real protected area for natural genetic resources and also have no specific practical policy on conservation of biodiversity. Although there are several gene banks having limited facilities to preserve some economic crops like rice, jute, wheat, pulses etc in Bangladesh, but there is no centralized organization to maintain germplasms of the wild relatives for agriculture, horticulture, medicinal and economically less important forest species. Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) is very worried about this. However, the rich and diverse heritage of traditional medicinal system in the Indian sub-continent including Bangladesh is increasingly threatened by the interplay of a number of factors such as rapid deforestation and habitat destruction, indiscriminate collection and exploitative trade network.