The contribution of social technologies and determining factors for the cultivation of medicinal plants: a systematic review

Abstract

This study aims to demonstrate how international literature has addressed the use of social technologies in the cultivation and management of medicinal plants over the last fifteen years. The methodological procedures involve exploratory and bibliographic research, with a systematic review of the literature on the Web of Science (WoS) platform as the primary source and SciELO as the secondary source, taking a qualitative approach of a simple or basic research nature, bringing together a rich collection of international scientific journals available online and free of charge, published during the period 2006 to 2021. The results of the studies showed that medicinal plants promote in a specific and consistent manner with regional and agroecological conditions the permanence of rural producers in the field. However, as there is a need for permanence and continuity of activities, it is increasingly important that social technologies are present to raise awareness of the relevance of technocratic solutions. The studies had different approaches in each region, finding convergences and divergences in the way of coexisting with and managing medicinal herbs. The techniques and handling strongly involve environmental, social, cultural, and political issues, which lack the dissemination of information, among other gaps observed in research, for better exploitation that is beneficial to society.

Keywords
medicinal herbs; management; techniques