Speaker
Description
Medicinal and Aromatic plants (MAPs) have become a rising value all over the world in the last decades. These distinguished crops classified under industrial plants are of important raw materials in order to develop novel natural products especially in food, medicine, cosmetic, perfumery, textile industries. Although the main source of MAPs, around 80%, is wild collection from flora, standardized sustainable raw material needs make some of them made main cultivated plants. Türkiye is one of the most important suppliers for medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) worldwide. Medicinal and aromatic plants exported from Türkiye have mostly been obtained from wild harvested from the rich flora of the county with more than 13.000 plant taxa, even today. However, the number of cultivated MAPs and their harvesting area is increasing day by day. The Turkish government manage sustainable wild harvesting of the MAPs with applicable rules and support these plants in situ cultivation and processing, especially in the rural areas. Cultivation of the MAPs started with limiting tobacco production and replacing novel crops with government financial and technical support in the beginning of 2000’s. Oregano, one of the most exported MAPs and mostly wild harvested, was the first novel crop from wild to field in Türkiye. After the successful domestication and cultivation story, nowadays, almost 80% of the exported Oregano has been obtained from field production. After Oregano many plant species which have economic importance started to cultivate on the fields. Orchids (Orchis sancta and Serapias vomeracea) for salep have been produced on the field cultivation, recently. Mountain tea (Sideritis spp.) cultivation studies are successfully going on and many other wild collected MAPs are about to cultivate on the fields in Türkiye. Turkish authorities are supporting medicinal and aromatic plants cultivation and more than 70 different MAPs species have been financially supported nowadays. We believe that many different MAPs species would be produced on the fields in the near future in Türkiye and rural development could be achieved by these plants’ cultivation.
