Quality Assurance of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants- Good Agricultural and Collection Practices (GAP & GCP)

Abstract

There has been increasing interest of use of herbal products globally and this has led to the spurt in the use of plant based medicines across the world. This has created opportunities for developing countries like India with traditional knowledge base to develop globally acceptable newer herbal drugs/neutraceuticals and convert their rich bioresources and associated traditional knowledge for economic wealth and thereby bring prosperity to the nation. However, the Indian herbal drug industries generally face the problem of adulteration and substitution, which may be deliberate or some time unintentional. Such adulteration and substitution lead to poor quality and batch to batch inconsistency. Medicinal plant materials are supplied through collection from wild populations and also from organized cultivation. Under the overall context of quality assurance of herbal medicines, W.H.O. has developed the Guidelines on Good Agricultural and Collection Practices (GACP) for medicinal plants, providing general technical guidance on obtaining medicinal plant materials of good quality for the sustainable production of herbal products classified as medicines. It is extremely important to establish the reference samples and to determine the quality parameters of the medicinal plants and adulterant/substitute by undertaking extensive and intensive study of the traditional treatise of the classical medicines or traditional practices, combined with the modern scientific knowledge and methods.