Herbal sanctuary set up at Agriculture Ministry

A herbal sanctuary containing numerous plants used for medicinal purposes as well as in recipes has been established at the Ministry of Agriculture in Graeme Hall, Christ Church.

Colin Maynard of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security gave an overview of the Graeme Hall Herbal Sanctuary yesterday, during the Caribbean Nutrition Conference which was held at that Ministry. He later gave conference attendees a tour of the facility.

“We in the Ministry, we are developing what we call a Herbal Sanctuary. It is basically a sanctuary to preserve and conserve many of the flora that exist in Barbados, some indigenous and some that would have come from other nations,” Maynard explained.

“It is basically in its infancy. We started sometime over the last quarter of last year and we have various species of herbs growing in our green house. That will be Unit One of the Herbal Sanctuary. We then have to replicate that into the normal environment where all the vagaries of the weather system would impact on the herbs, and we will compare those two growing systems,” he added.

“There are also a lot of useful plants in terms of trees, the larger species of plant that are not suited to the greenhouse. There is a third area, where we will be having those plants established. We have some already that we will be growing day by day,” he also stated.

Maynard meanwhile noted that there are between 40 or 50 different varieties of herbs in the greenhouse which serves as the Herbal Sanctuary at the Ministry of Agriculture.

He acknowledged that a lot of these herbs would have been used by older Barbadians to treat various ailments and a lot are still used for that purpose, as well as for cooling teas and in recipes.

Those visiting the sanctuary were able to view firsthand the various herbs which were well labelled and flourishing. Some of the herbs seen included periwinkle, basil, peppermint, wintergreen, catnip, aloe and vervain, amongst others.