[MPWG] Cultivation of Medicinal Plants

[Center for Sustainable Resources]

OK, I will bite but don't know if this will get posted. Usually the 
scientific police don'y allow postings from growers on this list unless they 
are comments that agree with the objective.
Voison is a good name but how about Liapold?
Fist I would like to point out that "organic" did not struggle for fifty 
years. The loss of organic production started about fifty years ago with the 
advent of good scientific information about chemicals and such. Prior to 
thgis time all ag was what you would call organic.
An irony about this is that all lands anywhere in the world have always been 
destroyed by human decision making regardless. Organic limitations verses 
high tech is simply a matter of spead considering how long it takes a 
culture to turn a piece of land to desert. The midwest cornbelt is simply a 
green desert. At this point if man walked away it would become a real desert 
quickly. You see most of the land has already gone down the Missisippi.
Preventing bare soil is the only conservation practice that works.
Growers have never been respected by the so called scientific community and 
that process continues. It seems connected to mainaining funds and 
bureaucratic jobs. It has nothing to do with doing the right thing but is 
entirely about ego and money.
So we as growers work to mainatin ourselves and work for ways to keep the 
helper agencies from stripping away what we sustain ourselves with.
That said certification will never be anything to anyone except those people 
who are not producers. For producers it is just another way city populations 
try to control the people on the land.
It tells the consumer nothing about the product they use except that someone 
said it was good to have this lable.
The only certification that works is to talk to who produces something 
directly. But then you can't trust producers. However, they are expected to 
trust the government which got us whetre we are.
I was told the other day that it is illegal to sell multiflora. This is 
ironic since the givernment sold it to us. It is a very useful plant and 
well behaved after being here a while so now they want to get rid of it. I 
hope this helps. Fred Hays

>From: "Jean Giblette" <hfg at capital.net>
>To: "PCA's Medicinal Plant Working Group 
>List"<MPWG at lists.plantconservation.org>
>Subject: Re: [MPWG] Cultivation of Medicinal Plants
>Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2005 11:21:55 -0500
>
>I know many growers in the U.S., Europe, Australia and New Zealand who 
>consider themselves to be the ORIGINATORS of this knowledge base of 
>ecological cultivation.  Yes, there were the prophets -- Okada, Howard, 
>Steiner, Voisin, Fukuoka -- but in the industrial world the machine 
>worldview has ruled for a century.  Organics was an entirely grass-roots 
>activity for 50 years in the U.S. until the Federal rule was formulated in 
>the 1990s.  The agricultural education establishment was actively hostile 
>to it.  [Steve Diver has been quite the exception to the norm, all along.]  
>I myself was rebuffed by my local Ag Extension agent in the early '90s when 
>I began growing Chinese medicinal herbs -- now he's very courteous and 
>helpful. Fortunately I was able to find enlightened academics, but many are 
>encumbered by their institutions.  The ecological farmers have created 
>their own separate teaching organizations, associations and conferences.
>
>Bio-dynamics, historically, was developed only by growers, never the 
>province of the academy or industrial concerns unless owned by 
>Anthroposophists.  It was almost entirely underground until the 1990s in 
>the U.S., as its practitioners were met with utter derision at the idea of 
>following the course of the moon in their procedures, or using fermented 
>herbal preparations in homeopathic doses.  As far as I'm concerned, a 
>bio-dynamically cultivated herb is as good or better than a wild plant.  I 
>visited two biodynamic medicinal plant gardens this past summer, in NY and 
>Quebec, where the plants exhibited truly astonishing vitality.  It's so 
>apparent I call it the "Findhorn effect."
>
>For one moment, can we address class prejudice against farmers?  An 
>anecdote will serve.  This past September at the conclusion of one of my 
>workshops, an Oriental medicine practitioner in attendance told me that the 
>weekend had changed his life.  He's a young African-American man, 
>practicing in Jersey, whose ancestors were sharecroppers in North Carolina. 
>  He said, "I always thought that farming was beneath me, something I would 
>never want to be involved in.  Then I saw that man [referring to the 
>bio-dynamic medicinal plant grower who was lecturing], how incredibly 
>skilled and thoughtful he is, and how wide-ranging his knowledge.  And my 
>whole worldview shifted."  He later told me he had enrolled himself and his 
>two young children in a horticulture course.
>
>To be ruthlessly frank, the big deficit of this listserve is that the 
>growers are missing from the discussion.  I can afford the time to write 
>this response only because I'm holed up after a snowstorm in January.
>
>Ecological cultivation of medicinal plants is the way to go.
>
>
>Jean Giblette, Director
>HIGH FALLS GARDENS
>Box 125 Philmont NY 12565 USA
>518-672-7365
>hfg at capital.net
>
>----- Original Message -----
>   From: JPS Kohli
>   To: MPWG at lists.plantconservation.org
>   Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 1:27 AM
>   Subject: [MPWG] Cultivation of Medicinal Plants
>
>
>   Steve Diver has further strengthened my belief that cultivation 
>(bio-dynamic or organic or any other form it takes) will be the next big 
>thing to happen in the field of medicinal plants. It is my belief that 
>cultivation is the immediate next step forward which has to be understood 
>before embarking on newer (and maybe better) methods towards conservation 
>of medicinal plants. Good agricultural practices (encompassing all 
>processes starting from soil preparation to harvesting/storage) needs to be 
>implemented industry-wide and certification agencies will have an important 
>role to play.
>
>   Sadly, the growers/cultivators of medicinal plants are among the most 
>inaccessible parts of the chain of supply in medicinal plants trade and the 
>knowledgebase (as improved from time to time) takes an eternity to 
>percolate down to them. Lets hope things change for the better sooner 
>rather than later.
>
>   Note for Steve Diver - Your website mentioned in your email is an 
>awesome source of information. My compliments for this achievement.
>
>   J P S Kohli (B. Pharm)
>   Business Horizons
>   Pharmaceutical Publishers
>   G-59, Masjid Moth, GK-2
>   New Delhi - 110 048, INDIA
>
>   Ph: 91-921206 1554
>   Fax: 91-11-5163 7296, 2921 1676
>   E-Mail: info at businesshorizons.com
>   Alternate: businesshorizons at yahoo.com
>   Web Site: http://www.businesshorizons.com
>
>
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>Disclaimer
>Any advice given on this list regarding diagnosis or treatments etc. 
>reflects ONLY the opinion of the individual who posts the message. The 
>information contained in posts is not intended nor implied to be a 
>substitute for professional medical advice relative to your specific 
>medical condition or question. All medical and other healthcare information 
>that is discussed on this list should be carefully reviewed by the 
>individual reader and their qualified healthcare professional. Posts do not 
>reflect any official opinions or positions of the Plant Conservation 
>Alliance.