NewsWhore
07-26-2012, 05:30 PM
A wonderful poet named Ogden Nash once wrote: "What a wonderful bird is the pelican; his beak can hold more than his belly can." Which seems to describe the article in today's Listin Diario that attempts to present all of the marvelous used for the moringa oleifera, also known here as the "Freedom Plant" and in other places as the Drumstick tree or the West Indian ben.
The article by Teonilda Gomez notes that plantations near the town of Nagua are producing volumes of the prodigious plant. Large extensions of land are dedicated to the cultivation of the small tree in Vista Linda de Baoba, in the Pinal section of Nagua.
The area has been a meeting place for nutritionists, doctors and scientific personnel from all over the world, including Cuba, Colombia and Canada. In Cuba, the plant has been integrated into the diet of school children and in the Dominican Republic it is used on farms as forage. A leading Cuban expert on the plant, Raul Ruiz Pirruguez was sent by Fidel Castro to Nagua to carry out research on the tree, since its medicinal qualities are well known in folk medicine as well as in formal pharmacology. It has been used to treat cancer. Persons from Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Panama, Switzerland, Spain and the United States visit the area in order to obtain the plant or its by-products: oils or creams.
Eleazar Henriquez, a sociologist and the owner of Agroindustria Biotica Dominicana Henriquez, says that the plant came to this island some 220 years ago from Jamaica, and it is cultivated all over the island.
A partial list of its uses in popular medicine includes properties of: anti-scurvy; anti-inflammatory; anti-microbial; healing of wounds; diuretic; laxative; flushing of the skin; stimulant expectorant, anti-fever, and abortive. In agriculture, Henriquez says that its use improves soils, feeds cattle, chickens, and fish. He says that it use reduces costs by 78%, lessens harvest time by five days and is an alternative to spraying.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#10)
The article by Teonilda Gomez notes that plantations near the town of Nagua are producing volumes of the prodigious plant. Large extensions of land are dedicated to the cultivation of the small tree in Vista Linda de Baoba, in the Pinal section of Nagua.
The area has been a meeting place for nutritionists, doctors and scientific personnel from all over the world, including Cuba, Colombia and Canada. In Cuba, the plant has been integrated into the diet of school children and in the Dominican Republic it is used on farms as forage. A leading Cuban expert on the plant, Raul Ruiz Pirruguez was sent by Fidel Castro to Nagua to carry out research on the tree, since its medicinal qualities are well known in folk medicine as well as in formal pharmacology. It has been used to treat cancer. Persons from Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Panama, Switzerland, Spain and the United States visit the area in order to obtain the plant or its by-products: oils or creams.
Eleazar Henriquez, a sociologist and the owner of Agroindustria Biotica Dominicana Henriquez, says that the plant came to this island some 220 years ago from Jamaica, and it is cultivated all over the island.
A partial list of its uses in popular medicine includes properties of: anti-scurvy; anti-inflammatory; anti-microbial; healing of wounds; diuretic; laxative; flushing of the skin; stimulant expectorant, anti-fever, and abortive. In agriculture, Henriquez says that its use improves soils, feeds cattle, chickens, and fish. He says that it use reduces costs by 78%, lessens harvest time by five days and is an alternative to spraying.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#10)