An advisor to the Agriculture Jihad Ministry in lran claimed," Nearly 220000 hectares of land have currently been allocated to the cultivation of medicinal herbs in the country." Mr. Zeinali remarked," There exists approximately 220000 hectares of land already under the cultivation of medicinal plants in the country."                                  He stated that off all 220000 hectares of cultivated area, 117000 hectares of land were dedicated to the cultivation of saffron. The minister's advisor who executes the project of medicinal herbs in the Ministry of Agriculture announced that

for this reason about 25000 hectares of the planted area were alloted to the cultivation of Rosa Damascena.                            Referring to the exports of 170 million US dollars of various kinds of medicinal herbs in the year passed, Mr. Zeinali added," About 190 tonnes of saffron and a total of 40 million $ worth of medicinal foliage plants have been exported to the foreign countries." He emphasized," The foresight indicates that more than 600 million dollars of medicinal herbs may be exported to the overseas this year." The Ministry policy in the field of herbal medicine is to increase the share of the medicinal herbs in tge budget by improving the efficiency of mechanization. Speaking about the potentials of Lorestan Province in the field of medicinal plantation, he uttered," We hope to make some organizations in the field of medicinal herb plantation such as shallot so that we may provide the grounds to increase the production of this valuable species or save the fresh water resources in the province." Due to its climatic conditions, Lorestan provides the farmers with opportunity to enhance the cultivation of shallot which may employ lot of jobless figures and bring in a lot of foreign exchanges. A great deal of measures have been taken to develop the medicinal herb plantation in the province and factories for drug production have already been established. Finally, the advisor reminded the audience of the increase in the land area allocated to the cultivation of both shallot and rosa damascena in Lorestan.