Abstract:

Traditional medicine is becoming more popular in many countries as an alternative medicine. This resulted in an upturn in the demand of medicinal plants all over the world. Adulteration affects the quality of traditional medicines. Therefore, this issue needs to be resolved by developing alternative supply of medicinal plants through cultivation. Cultivation of medicinal plants need to be promoted among rural farmers in order to meet excess demand of medicinal plants and it can be a potential provider of returns to the rural farmers. The present paper analyses the results of socio-economic improvement of rural farmers by a restructuring of the supply chain of medicinal plants through transforming traditional agriculture system with contract farming cultivation to meet the demand of medicinal plants. The sampling method adopted was non-probability purposive sampling, and the sample size is 200 farmers. Data was collected from framers in Thrissur district of Kerala through a structured questionnaire. Using Statistical Package for Social Sciences various relevant test was administered like, Paired ttest and Chi-square test. From this study, it was analyzed that all the variables of social impact like health management (396.3%), public recognition (52.03%) and extension participation (48.77%) had shown positive shift due to contract farming in medicinal plants.