The advantages of cultivation can be briefed as follows:
It ensures the quality and purity of medicinal plants. The crude drugs are recognized on the basis of the presence of the chemical contents in them and their purity.
If in the process of cultivation, all the operations are uniformly maintained, a drug with highest purity can be achieved. For e.g., ginger, turmeric and liquorice. In cultivation of rhizomes, an adequate supply of irrigation and fertilizers is necessary. Systemic cultivation can yield crops with higher purity. Collection of crude drugs from cultivated plants gives a better yield and therapeutic quality. However it requires skill along with some professional excellence. Such practice can give a drug with higher therapeutic quality and yield. For e.g., collection of latex from poppy capsules, oleo-resins from pinus species, preservation of green colour of senna leaves and minimizing the deterioration of cardiac glycosides in freshly collected leaves of digitalis.
Cultivation ensures a regular supply of crude drugs. This minimizes the problem of shortage of raw material by properly planning a crop-cultivation.
The cultivation of medicinal and aromatic plants also leads to industrialization to a greater extent. For e.g., cultivation of coffee and cocoa in kerala has given rise to several cottage industries, cinchona in Bengal has led to establishment of cinchona alkaloid factory in Darjeeling, and government owned opium factory at Ghaziabad signifies well planned cultivation of opium.
Cultivation permits application of modern technological aspects such as mutation, polyploidy and hybridization.
The major disadvantages of cultivation include high cost of drugs as compared to wild varieties and loss due to ecological disturbances such as storms, earthquakes, floods, droughts, etc.
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