**3. Trade in herbal drugs**

According to National Medicinal Plant Board (NMPB) Report, India's domestic herbal industry (since India being a major exporter of herbal raw drugs) has around 8610 licensed herbal units, thousands of cottage level unregulated herbal units and millions of folk healers and household level users of thousands of herbal raw drugs. Also, the trade web that channelizes various herbal raw drugs from the supply to the end users is very complex. Thus, to have a better understanding of the Market and trade of the sector, we need to focus on demand and supply chains of the medicinal plants. The demand and supply chain of medicinal plants in the country is itself very complex.

Presently, medicinal plants are marketed and traded through Mandis and other wholesale markets in India with numerous intermediaries in between. Trade is rather opaque and information on prices, arrivals and other trends are difficult for farmers/growers to access. NMPB has been initiating many steps in order to fill this gap.

Another major gap between the demand and supply has emerged due to the commercialization of the production of classical Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani (ASU) formulations that require large quantities of wild harvested, cultivated or imported herbal raw drugs. This has resulted into thriving trade in raw drugs. Because of this, knowledge about the annual consumption levels of the herbal raw drug, the trends in their usage and their trade value is important so that the resources can be managed to ensure sustainable supplies to the herbal drug industry, folk users and growing global markets [15].
