The Swat Valley (including its tributaries) is a part of Pakistan where poverty is both extreme and pervasive. Most families rely on livestock and small landholdings for their livelihood. Cattle is taken to alpine meadows in the summer and land is used primarily for growing maize and wheat intercropped with vegetables. Many of these families supplement their income by collecting medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPS). These collections are often made from natural populations, a practice that frequently leads to loss of the populations through over-harvesting. In addition, traveling to such populations frequently requires traveling by foot several hours because, with deforestation, they no longer grow near existing villages. previous studies conducted by the  International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) have shown that these factors, exacerbated by lack of understanding of the potential economic value of such plants, means that the return to collectors is minimal, while the potential harm to natural populations is substantial.

To address these problems and challenges, the present IFPRI funded project worked with small farmers in three villages comprised of ten hamlets to establish and sustainably harvest several MAPS, both through sustainable wild collection and deliberate cultivation, and assist them in developing facilities and procedures for their processing and storage that qualify their material for higher prices.

Although rising population coupled with rising demand usually has an adverse effect on native populations of MAPS, there is little information concerning the ecological and geographic limits of these plants in Pakistan, nor of their abundance. To address this problem, the present project conducted surveys of the natural vegetation in the targeted valleys and established monitoring plots around local MAPS populations. The project has explored the potential value of species that, based on their relationship to species of known economic value, might also be economically valuable. The project involved both undergraduate and graduate students as well as local villagers, thereby harnessing the region’s human and social capital towards a common goal, improving the livelihood of its people.