Muğla Directorate of Agriculture and Forestry is working to market medicinal aromatic plants used as raw materials in sectors such as medicine, food and cosmetics with high yields and income. The teams affiliated to Muğla Agriculture and Forestry Directorate strive to transform Muğla into a center where medicinal aromatic plants, from seeds to finished products, will be produced, processed and marketed.

Muğla Agriculture and Forestry Director Barış Saylak told Anadolu Agency (AA) that hundreds of farmers were trained in order to ensure agricultural development and encourage the production of medicinal and aromatic plants in Muğla and its districts.
Stating that Muğla will be the capital of medicinal and aromatic plants in the coming years with its rich plant diversity and flora, Saylak said, "Considering its economic return and increasing global demand, the importance of medicinal and aromatic plants is increasing day by day. It will become a leading attraction in the field of aromatic plants."

Explaining that they have achieved their goals step by step within the scope of the 3-year project with the Clustering Model, Saylak said, "Our medicinal aromatic plant cultivation area, which was 495 decares until 2020, reached 3,500 decares at the end of last year. This year, we planted 1 million medicinal aromatic plant seedlings in different regions of our province with our producers. Our goal is to distribute 900 thousand more seedlings by the end of April and to bring in total 3.5 million medicinal aromatic plant seedlings to the soil by the end of 2023. Most of the medicinal aromatic plants are present in Muğla's own flora."

Emphasizing that they want to produce quality products for export as well as to ensure that the oils obtained from these plants are used in the cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries, Saylak said, "The products produced undoubtedly have a value in export as such, but our goal here is to turn them into value-added products and to provide our farmers more income with the extracts of these products."
Saylak stated that they are working under the auspices of the Governor's Office with Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University, public institutions, non-governmental organizations and agricultural cooperatives. Saykak said that when the project is completed, a museum of medicinal aromatic endemic plants will be established in Fethiye İncirköy and 6 villages.

Emphasizing that this will also be an investment that will serve agricultural tourism, Saylak noted that as a result of the clustering, they are trying to bring the producers together with the industrialists to achieve a guaranteed income level.
Saylak stated that they do not regard medicinal and aromatic plants only as green vegetation and made assessment, "We aim to create a Muğla Brand both in cosmetics and in the pharmaceutical industry. It is our biggest goal to produce raw materials that raise awareness in this geography, and to market it under the Muğla brand, to export it in domestic and international markets. "

Source: Anadolu Ajansı