Emphasise on promoting edible insects farming in NER, says Dr RK Ranjan

By Our Staff Reporter
IMPHAL, May 24: Union Minister of State for Education Dr RK Ranjan has appealed to the Institute for Bioresearches and Sustainable Development (IBSD), Imphal to lay special emphasis on promoting edible insects farming in Northeast Region to protect the diseases caused by consumption of high cholesterol foods and to generate income out of it.
He made the above appeal while virtually addressing a brainstorming programme on medicinal plants for rural livelihood and drug development in Northeast Region of India under the programme on Bioeconomy from bioresources in connection with the International Biodiversity Day celebration at IBSD, Imphal campus at Takyelpat as the chief guest.
The programme was jointly organized by IBSD, Imphal, CSIR-Northeast Institute of Science & Technology, Jorhat and Society for Ethnopharmacology, Kolkata.
Expressing satisfaction on the promotion of Phytopharmaceutical Mission of Northeast Region by Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and inauguration of Phyto-pharmaceutical Lab Facility, he continued that IBSD‘s initiative to establish the Phyto-pharmaceutical Mission to promote the documentation, scientific validation and evaluation of traditional healthcare practices is an important step.
He said that the focus of IBSD on the promotion of start-ups based on the development of herbal medicinal products such as AYUSH drugs, Phytopharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals among others is the need of the hour and is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s vision for a self reliant Nation.
Stating that an interesting dimension of Phytopharmaceutical Mission is its main focus on therapeutic areas like anti-viral, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and insect repellents, he went on to maintain that diabetes, arthritis, bronchial asthma, gastro-protectives and immuno-modulation are the other thrust areas of the same Mission.
The Union MoS said that the move to target high quality volatile oil producing plants under Phytopharmaceutical Mission will attract more farmers to commercial cultivation of aromatic plants of this region besides popularizing traditional healthcare practices.
Asserting that various medicinal plants which are unique to Northeast region are being targeted under the same mission for their documentation, extraction, isolation, characterization, value-addition and development of marker compounds among other things, he maintained that the studies focussing on a range of medicinal plants with potential therapeutic effects for establishing their mechanism of action with network pharmacology and synergistic study, mark a significant step forward.
He said that the exceptional work being done by IBSD through scientific management of the bioresources in the Indian region falling within the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot which have a rich variety of ecosystems as the focus of research activities is commendable.
IBSD Director Professor Pulok K Mukherjee, DBT, New Delhi’s scientist Dr Sanjay Mishra, CSIR-NEIST, Jorhat Director Dr G Narhari Sastry, resource persons and experts from various institutes and industries shared their ideas on the use of medicinal plants for livelihood generation and drug development and highlighted the need to establish value chain for products development.  More than 30 traditional healers of Manipur interacted with experts about their traditional medicines/ formulations. The programme was attended by scientists, scholars, staff of IBSD, CSIR-NEIST and other institutions.