Supply of Medicinal Raw Materials for Ayurvedic Manufacturing Sector in Kerala (India)

Untangling the web of raw material supply for Ayurvedic industry : The complex geography of plant circulations

By L. Dejouhanet and Sreelakshmy M. The growing Ayurvedic medical industry requires nowadays increasing quantities of raw materials and improving plant traceability for fitting with standardised norms of production. But the raw material procurement of Ayurvedic industries is based on complex intertwined networks, involving many stakeholders and informal transactions. This chapter focus on these supply chains and describe the tortuous itineraries of Ayurvedic plants from their wild collection to their procurement to the factories. Ayurvedic medical industry is extremely dependent on its suppliers, mostly local agents working with groups of collectors. But because of decreasing availability of natural resources, liberalization of State-controlled channels, socio-economic evolutions within rural areas and changes in medicine consumption patterns, Ayurvedic raw material supply is progressively getting transformed. The sector as a whole is at a watershed moment, when longstanding channels are forced to recompose and evolve. Distances between plant sources and transforming units widen. Based on numerous surveys conducted in Central Kerala with various stakeholders like Ayurvedic company managers, private traders, local intermediaries and plant gatherers, this chapter analyses these changes and the multidimensional complexity of raw material supply, as a crucial and dynamic part of the pharmaceutical assemblages.