The domestic market is still unexploited. Mr. Dhani's is a case that explains the ongoing trend of thinking among hill farmers by and large. Here in the hills, farmers are looking for improvements in their living standards and issues such as agrobiodiversity conservation are of less concern to them. Domestication of medicinal plants is another attractive option. Many medicinal plants in Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan and the Indian Himalayas are collected as wild plants.
China is the only country with substantial experience in farming medicinal plants.
In Nepal and India, scientists have tried to domesticate medicinal plants on arable land, whereas in China they were introduced on to marginal lands or leased forest or intercropped with agroforestry. Learning from farmers in other areas should be a priority in searching for appropriate technologies. Necessary training should be given in situ so that a large number of women farmers can participate, because women are the repositories of skills and knowledge. Agrobiodiversity is not only a function of the total number of species and cultivars. The replacement of traditional crops by new species has increased the agrobiodiversity of new crop species and reduced the diversity of old local crop species.