TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE OF FARMERS ON MEDICINAL PLANTS AND ITS ADOPTION IN MAMIT DISTRICT OF MIZORAM

Abstract

 Medicinal plants, also called medicinal herbs, have been discovered and used 
in traditional medicine practices since prehistoric times. Plants synthesise hundreds of 
chemical compounds for functions including defence against insects, fungi, diseases, 
and herbivorous mammals. Traditional healers have used several plants to treat various 
diseases over the years and use of many of these plants as medicine is described in Ayurvedic 
texts. Many diseases including cancer, leprosy, syphilis, all types of fever, children’s 
abdominal disorders, elephantiasis and hydrocele have been treated using botanical sources. 
The plants synthesize several non-nutritive phytochemicals for different purposes and these 
have been reported to be beneficial as they possess various medicinal activities in humans. 
These phytochemicals are primary or secondary metabolites with varying biological activities 
and they are usually the main active principles present in plants. It has been estimated that in 
developed countries such as United States, plant drug constitute as much as 25% of the total 
drugs, while in fast developing countries such as India and China the contribution is as much 
as 80%. Thus, the economic importance of medicinal plants is much more to India than to the 
rest of the world. These countries provide two third of the plants used in modern system of 
medicine and the health care system of rural population depend on the indigenous system of 
medicine. Hence the present study was undertake in order to find out the adoption level of the 
medicinal farmers towards improved variety and technology with respect to socio-economic 
profile of the farmers of Mamit block of Mamit District, Mizoram. The Study revealed that 
most of the respondents (43.33%) per cent have medium adoption level followed by 28.34 
per cent of respondents belonged to low Adopted category whereas 28.33 per cent fell in high 
adopted category.