Essay --

Genetic resources are species, subspecies or genetic varieties of plants, animals and microorganisms that currently provide important goods and services or may be capable of providing them at some time in the future. Given the rapid increase in biotechnology and limitations of current knowledge, virtually all plants, animals and microorganisms qualify as genetic resources. The main focus is plants in medicine where by the points, herbal medicine, aspects of the economy and eventually conflicting interests between local livelihood and commercial industries, the value of exploitation of the ecosystem for the human economy, plants impact on medicine, public concerns and criticisms regarding the use of genetic modified crops usage and the factors that affects socio-economy and economic value of the medicinal plants are addressed clearly. The use of herbal medicine seek to explain whether the products used while extracting the medicine is of best quality or not and if it is health and safe. Plants have been used in medicinal purposes such as well-being enhancing, protection from evil spirits and to protect from lightning. Modern medicine is expensive and cannot be easily accessed by the poor people therefore it is better for them to go for primary healthcare. Herbal medicine is also highly in demand in the developed world because it is believed that it is safe and has fewer side effects. World Health Organization survey indicates that about 70-80% of the world population particularly in the developing countries rely mainly on herbal medicines for their primary healthcare (WHO, 1998). In Nigeria the usage of traditional medicine has been put in place in order to meet everyone’s healthcare system since the western medicine only caters f... ...a socio-economist I might say the use of GM crops in medicine have benefits to the natural ecosystem by greatly reducing the soil erosion, providing habitats to small creatures and reducing the loss of groundwater, this really means the restoration of the exploitation done on the ecosystem for the human economy. â€Æ' REFERENCE LIST Cocks, M. and Moller, V. 2002. Use of indigenised medicines to enhance well-being: A South African case study. Pp.387-397. Gowon, B.A. and Goon, D.T. 2010. Health sector reforms in Nigeria: The need to integrate traditional medicine into healthcare system. African Journal for Physical, Health Education, Recreation and Dance. 16(3). Pp.373. http://bmb.oxfordJournals.org accessed on [25/02/2014] WHO. 1998. Quality control methods for medicinal plants: determination of microorganisms. World Health Organisation. Geneva: Swirtzerland, pp.64-73.