Researchers from 14 countries and 14 states traveled to Fargo June 16-18 to participate in the fifth annual American Council for Medicinally Active Plants Conference. The countries represented were Australia, Brazil, China, Chile, India, Ireland, Japan, Kuwait, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey and the United States.
The council was established in 2009 “to promote and foster research, development, production, and conservation of medicinal, aromatic and other bioactive plants useful to human health.” Members include scientists in the studies of agriculture, chemistry, food science and safety, health, nutrition, molecular biology, manufacturing and commerce. The council and the NDSU Global Institute of Food Security and International Agriculture, directed by Kalidas Shetty, sponsored the event.
Numerous research and poster reporting sessions were held during the two-day conference. Topics covered included controlling non-communicable chronic diseases with functional foods and indigenous diets, the role of phenolic phytochemicals in human health, plant bioactives, plant metabolic engineering strategies, nutraceutical research and pharmaceutical products of plants and herbs.
The first keynote speaker at the conference was Dr. Mark Walhlqvist who presented “Current Global Challenges on Diet-Linked Chronic Diseases and the Role of Medicinal Plants.” Known worldwide, Wahlqvist is a food and nutrition expert. He earned medical degrees in Adelaide, Australia, and Uppsala, Sweden, and has worked in numerous medical and research centers. He is a professor of epidemiology and preventive medicine at Monash University in Australia.
Donald Warne, director of the NDSU Master of Public Health Program, gave the conference banquet presentation titled “Global Indigenous Chronic Disease Burden: Role of Medicinal Plants and Foods.” Warne also is director of the newly established American Indian Public Health Resource Center at NDSU.
Shetty, Warne and Wahlqvist also presented a forum that was open to the public. The title of the forum was “Crops for Health as Solution to Chronic Diseases: Strategic Vision for Agriculture and Global Food Security.”
An optional tour on the third day of the conference included stops at Peterson Farms Seed Co. in Harwood, North Dakota; Bonanzaville; and the NDSU Agricultural Experiment Station Research Greenhouse Complex.
NDSU is recognized as one of the nation's top 108 public and private universities by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.