The Natural Products Industry: A Global and African Economic Perspective

Abstract

Plant-based natural products that are collected from the wild, grown as cultivated crops or in agroforestry systems are used widely in number of different industries for their pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, cosmetic and other industrial and heath applications. The natural products subsector remains an area of economic growth around the world especially among the developing countries. Most importantly, gathering, processing and commercialization of these natural products are carried out largely by the poor and most vulnerable members of societies, and is usually conducted by women. Thus, the use and commercialization of natural products has a strong linkage to poverty reduction and income generating particularly in the rural areas of Africa, Asia and Latin America. The global natural products industry, including the key sub-sectors of food and beverages, cosmetics, herbal medicines and pharmaceuticals, has been estimated to be valued at about US$ 65 billion per annum and continues to grow. While this suggests many potential opportunities for increased trade in natural products, the lack of international standard classification of natural products creates problems in trade, tracking and particularly in measuring trade volumes and tariff analysis. Natural products are widely dispersed, production is highly variable and is often collected in small quantities, is often seasonally dependent and some products are highly perishable. Therefore, the emergence of new voluntary trade standards, quality assurance schemes, codes of practice and certification schemes and the development of appropriate post-harvest handling and storage or value-addition processing presents key market access challenges for natural products.