KARACHI: Only 15 per cent of the total plant species (240,000) in the world have so far been explored for their medicinal properties, which means that there is a need for a lot of research in this area, said a speaker at a function held to mark the Ladies Horticultural Club’s golden jubilee at a hotel here on Saturday.

The event was attended by present and past members and office-bearers of the club.

Briefing the audience on the LHC journey that began five decades ago and its activities, club president Farhana Ansari said that the club aimed at promoting horticulture among Pakistani women was founded by Abdul Karim Khan back in 1964. Begum Daulat Anver Hidayatullah was its first president.

“Since then, the club has grown into a large platform with support from different segments of society,” she said.

The club encouraged women to do gardening, learn floral arrangement and the art of preserving food, she added.

“There is an emphasis on low-cost techniques that require low consumption of water,” she said, adding that there was also a conscious effort to promote vertical gardening so that more and more people could practice the art of plantation.

Ms Ansari strongly supported kitchen gardening and said that given the benefits of organic food, people must start growing vegetables at home without the help of pesticides. The good thing about vegetables was that they could be easily grown in pots and containers, she said.

Giving a presentation on medicinal use of plants, Dr Ahsana Dar Farooq, professor who recently retired from the Hosein Ebrahim Jamal Research Institute of Chemistry at Karachi University and currently working with a private company, said that though plant extracts had been in use for treating different illnesses since ancient times, there had been a rise in interest in medicinal properties of plants in the west in recent times.

“Hardly 15 per cent of the total plant species (240,000) have been explored for their medicinal properties yet. Little work has been done in Pakistan,” she said, adding that the sale from drugs derived from plants was expected to go in trillions of dollars by 2025 in the world.

About 25pc of today’s prescription drugs came from plant extracts while 80pc of world population used herbal medicine in one form or other, she said while citing the WHO data.

Sharing findings of her work, she said that she along with her students had successfully worked on indigenous plants having anti-inflammatory, anti-depressant and anti-cancer properties.

“We have established the scientific justification for these plants to go into clinical trials,” she said.

Representing the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Javed Jabbar highlighted the need for protecting the environment and said that human actions had greatly harmed nature. As a result of that, climate pattern had changed.

Unplanned urbanisation, he pointed out, was another problem facing Pakistan.

The country was urbanising faster than India as increasing number of people from rural areas were migrating to cities while agricultural land was being put into use for commercial activities.

Rahat Haque of the LHC told the audience about a project that transformed a village located near the Ghaggar Phatak area off the National Highway. Initially started as a horticulture venture with the support of club members a few years ago, the project had helped people grow all kinds of fruit and vegetables and earn a livelihood by selling cattle milk, jams and pickles that they learned to prepare from the club members.

“A school has also been set up under the project that is gradually expending, taking up new areas that could improve people’s lives,” Ms Haque said, adding that the project showed how little efforts could bring about a big change.

Abdul Karim Khan, founder of Horticultural Society of Pakistan and the LHC, now in his 80s, had also come to the event on a wheelchair. In his brief address that was delivered by his granddaughter Zainab Khan, he congratulated the club on completing 50 years and urged them to further spread the cause of horticulture by promoting indigenous species.

His speech was followed by a display of fashion accessories, all made of fresh or dried plants, by girls.

Later, mementos were presented to the past presidents of the club: Begum Daulat Hidayatullah, Hamida H. Patel, Sultana Anwar Ali, Razzak Mohammad, Yasmin Khan, Shahina Mooraj, Habiba Thobani, Zubaida Habib, Nusrat Hussain, Riffat Chughtai, Rahat Haque, Durain Cassim, Mehar Kabaraji, Aqila Saeed and Freny Fatakia.

Published in Dawn December 7th , 2014