Arnold Kuntz Ph D

Wild Plant Gardening Arnold Kuntz Ph D

While government officials and technical experts are often considered as key decision-makers, in the case of in situ conservation and use of agricultural biodiversity, the ultimate decision-makers are the farmers and rural communities that use and depend upon biological resources for their income and survival. Throughout the world, and more especially in developing countries, wild plants make an important contribution to the life of local communities. They play a significant part in a wide range of agricultural systems as a source of wild foods and fuelwood, and they have an important socio-economic role through their use in medicines, dyes, poisons, shelter, fibres and religious and cultural ceremonies. Yet little systematic knowledge has been gathered on the uses of wild plants and they tend to be ignored in considerations of farming systems by extension workers, policy-makers and economists. Wild resources in general are often ignored and receive little recognition from the development community. The reasons for this neglect centre around: -lack of information about the extent of their use and importance in rural economies;-lack of information, especially statistics, concerning the economic value of wild plants;-lack of information and reliable methods for measuring their contribution to farm households and the rural economy;-lack of world markets, except for a small number of products;-irregularity of supply of wild plant products;-lack of quality standards;-lack of storage and processing technology for many of the products;-availability of substitutes;-bias in favour of large-scale agriculture. In most societies the use of wild plants forms part of traditional or indigenous systems of knowledge and practice that have developed and accumulated over generations. These systems form the basis of local-level decision-making in agriculture, food production, human and animal health and natural resource management.