Technical Meeting on Medicinal Plants and Saffron Held in Mashhad

In a technical meeting on medicinal plants and saffron, Barati, commercial adviser and head of National Plan Value Chain on Medicinal Plants of Khorasan Razavi Province, said, “Most of the medicinal plants exports in this province are: saffron, cumin, asafoetida, Ferula gummosa as well as Rosa damascena respectively and among which saffron has the highest export of 98 percent.”

He stated that the production and cultivation of cumin can have an increase in the export share of the province, “At the moment, cumin has 19 percent export share of this province, not to mention the numerous challenges that we are facing, which can be altered to opportunities.”

This head of National Plan Value Chain on Medicinal Plants of Khorasan Razavi Province said, “The complexity of the separation and value system of the organizational functions of governance, trust and assurance in the value chain system, institutionalization in markets, practical research and scientific development, collaboration of officials in the value chain system (private and governmental sectors), the use of all the capacities of the existing institutes as well as systematic collaboration among governance bases are to name a few of the important challenges we are facing in production and export of saffron and other medicinal plants.”

Barati added, “We are obviously confronting so many issues; however, the fact that the world is new to medicinal plants processing industry, there exists practical as well as scientific infrastructure suitable for industrial development, we are pioneers in some very significant plant species, the world’s main markets have relative knowledge of Iran’s climatic capacities, there exists the province’s strong organizations in the field of medicinal plants, universities and research institutes on medicinal plants are centered in the province, saffron is well known and there lies a great potential for several other plants, also Mashhad has a strong religious tourism. These are all among the positive points of Khorasan Razavi Province.”

He went on to say, “We have so many aims in the Ministry of Agriculture Jihad, especially in the medicinal plants department. Main aims such as: cultivation development of polarized medicinal plants according to the Sixth Development Plan, organic production of at least 30 percent of the medicinal plants according to the Sixth Development Plan, modification of cultivation pattern as well as standardization of at least 40 percent of the products of the areas under the cultivation in compliance with the international standards, strengthening of the two most important species of saffron and Rosa damascena as well as organization of the domestic market of the products by improving herbal and health stores.”