Medicinal and edible wild fruit plants of Botswana as emerging new crop opportunities

Abstract

There is a burgeoning need for the promotion of medicinal plants and edible fruit plants as crop in Botswana because these are re-emerging as health aid. Medicinal plants constitute one of the important overlooked areas of international development. They represent a form of biodiversity with the potential to do much good and not just in the healthcare. Indeed, the production and processing of medicinal plants offers the possibility of fundamentally upgrading the lives and well-being of peoples in rural regions. Botswana’s medicinal plants are over-harvested for use as human and livestock medicines. There is therefore, a risk of depletion and extinction of the most sought after species. Initiatives should be put in place to propagate, cultivate and conserve species population through the promotion of community-based and commercial nurseries. Naturally medicinal yields from the wild are unpredictable as the supplies are at the mercy of the weather, pests and other uncontrollable variables. Farming will even out the supply, regularize trade and make available to rural areas new sources of income. In international market, the opportunities are emerging day by day for the trade of medicinal plants to fetch foreign exchange for the country. In Botswana, pilot farmer based cultivation trials for selected number of threatened and indigenous species in home gardens to supply local needs and income generation are on-going. Hoodia gordonii(appetite suppressant), Harpagophytum procumbens (anti-inflammatory) and Artemisia afra (anti-malaria and antioxidant), Sclerocarya birrea (nutritional and medicinal) are some of the plants whose domestication offers a lucrative avenue for income generation as the global demand for plants as sources of drugs and novel foods increases. Initiatives to establish nurseries and ecological medicinal centres to encourage propagation and to provide species to local communities will assist in the conservation, sustainable use and offer opportunity for economic diversification. This paper explores the possibilities of cultivating medicinal and edible wild fruit plants of Botswana as cash crops.   Key words: Botswana medicinal plants, edible wild fruits, herbal teas, domestication, economic value.