Jharkhand State Agriculture Marketing Board

Jharkhand State Agriculture Marketing Board Jharkhand is endowed with rich forest wealth. Out of a total geographical area of the country, Jharkhand accounts for 3.4% of the total forest cover of the country and ranks 10th among all states. There are many important Non wood forest Products (NWFP) found in the forests eg.  leaves or Bid leaves , Sal Seed, Harra , Mahua flower, Imli ( Tamarind), Van Tulsi etc. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment estimates that up to 96% of the value of forests is derived from Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) or Minor Forest Products (MFP) and services (MEA 2005). More than 5,000 commercial forest products are non-timber products, including pharmaceuticals and food. Forests are often the ‘pharmacy’ and ‘supermarket’ for the rural poor and Tribal people who lives in or around forests. Yet, there was no marketing system or infrastructure to help these forest dwellers, so they were forced to play on the tunes of the local agents/or businessmen. These middlemen / agent /businessmen hardly use any practice to weigh the MFP before purchasing . The MFP collectors had no choice either in deciding the price of their collected MFP or proper weighing. To stop the exploitation of the poor MFP collectors, mostly the tribal.