Harnessing the Underexploited Plant Species for Economic Growth in Nigeria

Nigeria is richly endowed with medicinal plants/herbs which constitute numerous phytochemicals, proximate nutritional properties, micronutrients, dyes, antimicrobials properties, amongst others. These plants have been in usage AU: Please check if the edits made to sentence “These plants have been in usage…” are fine. over decades in Nigeria and Africa in ethnomedicine. Several studies have been undertaken validating the claims of folk medicine and generating data in respect of what each herb does and what parts of the plant does what. A lot of Nigerian plants are underutilized irrespective of the great potentials inherent in them. Not much commitment has been shown to funding research on these orphan crops and there is virtually no industry/institutional linkage and collaboration to address the numerous challenges in healthcare delivery. In this chapter, health benefits of Nigerian underutilized plants through production of antimicrobials, organic healthy food composites, dyes/stains for identification of microorganisms and tissue differentiation, media for cultivation of microorganisms, micronutrients for women and children are brought to the fore. A lot of foreign reserves are spent in the importation of these finished products into the country. Encouraging local production of these from Nigerian local herbs will definitely enhance the economic growth of Nigeria as products’ importation will be minimized and exports of these health-beneficial indigenous plant products from Nigeria improved.