[MPWG] US grown Chinese Herbs

[Jean Giblette]

US grown Chinese HerbsThe OM practitioners' responses changed from polite
and receptive to excited when we presented samples from the MHC's harvests
last year.  As a matter of fact, today is the one-year anniversary of a
successful event held in NYC Chinatown at Jeffrey Yuen's clinic, when we
introduced five NY herb farmers to 50+ practitioners and students.  These
clinicians are trained to handle material imported from China, and were
startled by the rich colors, aromas and vitality of the freshly dried
domestic herbs.  It's educational for them to meet the farmers and try to
understand what goes into production.  (We've been doing these
"show-and-tell" events all over the country for at least a year.)

At present the MHC has presold a 2005 Sample Pack and is working to fill
small orders in our growers associations' respective regions.  All our
farmers are all small-scale, high craft ecological operations and, while the
most experienced growers produce tons of herbs per year, we need to support
those who are learning and upgrading.  Therefore, it's a struggle to balance
demand and production capacity.  We have identified OM clinics and colleges
who will be working with us on evaluation of the material.

Also to assist with evaluation the Medicinal Herb Network in Minnesota,
affiliated with one of our associations, is developing a descriptive
analysis protocol adapted to traditional Chinese medicine.  This is a type
of organoleptic analysis which compares a range of samples to a standard and
yields replicable results.  Descriptive analysis has been used in the food
industry for decades and the Univ. of Minnesota is one of the leading
centers.  This work, still in progress and for which we seek additional
funding to move to the next phase, was reported in a peer-reviewed journal:

Hassel, C.A., et al. 2002. "Using Chinese medicine to understand medicinal
herb quality: An alternative to biomedical approaches?" Journal of
Agriculture and Human Values 19: 337-347.

The important questions of identification, nomenclature and invasiveness
have been studied for 15 years by the group I identify as the "Newman"
conservators because of Robert Newman, L.Ac., M.S.T.C.M. who has sourced
much of our material in China.  Perhaps you saw Steven Foster's article
about this group:

http://www.herbalgram.org/naturemade/herbalgram/articleview.asp?a=2754&p=Y

I address these questions and also the subject of comparative evaluation in
my recent article, "Can Chinese herbs be produced in North America?" in
American Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine, July 2004, Vol. 5 No. 1,
pp. 5-11, (Blooming Lotus Inc., P.O. Box 8143, Garden City NY 11530),
www.tcmaa.org.  This publisher hasn't posted the article yet, but perhaps if
you ask for it they'll put it up!

Meanwhile, the High Falls Gardens fall newsletter is posted at the NOFA-NY
website and describes recent activities of the MHC and the Newman
conservators:

http://nofany.org/projects/medicinalherbsfallupdate.pdf

I'll be glad to answer more questions from those of you who are interested.

Jean Giblette
Coordinator of Steering Committee, Medicinal Herb Consortium (MHC)
Director, HIGH FALLS GARDENS
Box 125 Philmont NY 12565 USA
518-672-7365
hfg at capital.net




----- Original Message -----
From: Kolleen Gowans
To: MPWG at lists.plantconservation.org
Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2005 4:51 AM
Subject: [MPWG] US grown Chinese Herbs



I'm curious about the Project by the Medicinal Herb Consortium (MHC) to grow
and evaluate Chinese herbs cultivated in the US by the Consortium's various
member farms. Has anyone heard any feedback from practitioners about the
quality of the herbs yet?
>From the articles I've read it seems the Consortium is analysing the
sustainability, the growers' and buyers' economics, and the quality (from a
practitioner's clinical perspective). Are any other analytical methods being
done to compare the US grown Chinese herbs to Chinese grown Chinese herbs?
Certainly the recently mentioned issues regarding nomenclature and
environmental impact apply here as well.

Some background in the web articles:

http://www.acupuncturetoday.com/online/giblette.html
http://spectre.nmsu.edu/media/news2.lasso?i=774


Can anyone share an update or insight to this MHC project?

Thanks,
Kolleen Gowans
MSc Herbal Medicine






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