The
verdant mountains and forests of the Appalachian region in southwestern
Virginia may not be the first place that comes to mind when thinking about
sourcing herbs for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). However, the terrain and
climate of Appalachia are similar to some of the primary herb-growing areas of
China, and the region is well-suited for cultivating medicinal herbs used in TCM.1
Thanks to the efforts of a group of herbalists, growers, and practitioners, Appalachia
has now become renowned for producing raw herbal materials to address a demand
for high-quality Chinese herbs as TCM continues to gain popularity in North
America.2
The
Appalachian Herb Growers Consortium (AHGC) was established in 2014, and now
represents 50 small farmers in southwestern Virginia who are using ecologically
sustainable practices to grow Chinese medicinal herbs. The consortium’s mission
is to bolster farmers’ incomes and crop diversity; provide high-quality, effective
herbs for practitioners of acupuncture and TCM; and grow and process herbs with
respect for nature and the traditions of TCM.3
The consortium
began as a way to support the Blue Ridge Center for Chinese Medicine, a
community health facility established in 2006 in the town of Pilot, Virginia,
an open-minded community with a strong alternative culture harkening back to
the 1970s and 80s. Practitioners at the center offer a range of services from
acupuncture to massage and provide a variety of classes and workshops for the
public.4
The
Blue Ridge Center was founded to provide a new type of health care for the
rural community, according to Nile Bachmann, LAc, MSOM, a clinical supervisor
and practitioner at the center, who provides input on herb quality and efficacy
for the consortium (oral communication, October 12, 2017). People in the area
are surprisingly receptive to TCM, he noted. “We have a lot of pain conditions
here, and Chinese medicine uses herbal medicine to address those conditions.”
The
center has been well-received by locals, but the biggest obstacle has been to make
the treatments accessible and affordable. “This is a wonderful place to live,
but it’s hard to make a living here,” said Naomi Crews, an herb production
coordinator at AHGC (oral communication, October 12, 2017). “Our hope is that
by increasing the quality of life and economic opportunities, it will help make
the Blue Ridge Center accessible and give the community resources to seek out
these services.”
The AHGC
was created in part to support Blue Ridge Center practitioners who wanted to
grow herbs for use in a clinical setting, Bachmann recalled. They began by
growing herbs at the center’s garden, but as they realized the potential of the
local climate and growing conditions, the production of Chinese herbs on a
bigger scale was an obvious next step. With expanding interest in herbal and
Chinese medicine, establishing a homegrown source of raw materials and adding
to the domestic production of some of the more obscure and difficult-to-obtain
herbs were additional benefits.
“The
quality of the herbs we were getting was also at the back of our minds,”
Bachmann said. “The Chinese are not always very transparent about what they
send, and we don’t necessarily get China’s best product. They keep that for
themselves. Herbs also go through natural degradation when shipped, so we
wanted to address that as well.”
To
get the consortium off the ground, seed was obtained from reputable sources
including the Chinese Medicinal Herb Farm in Petaluma, California, and High
Falls Gardens in Philmont, New York, the latter of which is part of the Eastern
Forest Chinese Herbal Medicine Consortium, which became an early partner of the
AHGC.
Recruiting Farmers
Getting
farmers on board to grow herbs for the consortium has been a tough sell. There
was substantial interest, Crews noted, “but the nature of this is different for
most farmers here. It is perennial agriculture.” Many farmers were unfamiliar
with this model, and they needed faster returns on their investments. In some
cases, farmers may have to wait several years to harvest and see a profit. “It
has taken a while to court them and help them learn to cultivate the plants
without taking too much of a financial risk,” Crews said.
AHGC
members come from a wide variety of backgrounds, from home gardeners to
wholesale vegetable producers. To become a member, growers need to have some
skill in agriculture (three to five years is preferred), but they don’t have to
have specific experience with Chinese medicine or herbs, explained Adam Fisher,
an herb production coordinator for the AHGC (oral communication, October 12,
2017).
All
growers are required to practice ecologically sound growing methods, which, at
a minimum, means they need to avoid use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides,
and herbicides. Growers do not need to have organic certification, but they do
need to follow Good Agricultural Practices as established by the United States Department
of Agriculture.5
Beyond
that, the consortium farmers also practice perennial polyculture, which is a
specific cultivation technique designed to mimic natural relationships among plants
in the wild. The plots in this system should contain a variety of plants, with
different heights or structures that form a network of supporting plants to
attract insects, accumulate nutrients, and maximize soil biodiversity. “We ask
the farmers to plant a minimum of three species [that belong to] different
plant families that can offset the challenges of pests and disease,” Fisher
explained. For example, in a full sun area, a good grouping would be red root
sage (Salvia miltiorrhiza, Lamiaceae)
in the mint family and flowering herbs like chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum x morifolium,
Asteraceae) and Chinese bellflower (Platycodon
grandiflorus, Campanulaceae).
The
polyculture system is designed to mimic ancient traditional methods for growing
Chinese herbs in order to ensure their potency, Bachmann said.
AHGC growers
are instructed not to modify their farm for the plants, but rather to fit the
right plants in the proper place, Crews added. “For most of the crops, we have
to teach the farmers to not use nutrient amendments like organic fertilizers.
But there are always exceptions,” she said “A few species like the fruit-producing
vine Trichosanthes kirilowii [Curcurbitaceae]
seem to appreciate additional nutrients, just like pumpkins [Cucurbita pepo, Cucurbitaceae] or squash
[Cucurbita spp.]. For some of the
root crops, we have to help [the growers] understand that it is acceptable to
have some insect pressure to help produce a stronger, healthier plant.”
The AHGC
also provides education and monitors
growers along the way, conducting site visits to ensure that plants are placed
appropriately and providing instruction on how and when to harvest. The
consortium also offers an advantageous model in which farmers can diversify crops
and minimize financial risks involved with food spoilage and shipments. “If you
are a tomato farmer and you have a truck load of nice, ripe tomatoes, you need
to get them delivered quickly,” Fisher said. “What we are selling is dried
herbs. The farmers don’t have to worry about that [i.e., quick delivery] with
these plants.”
After
the plants are harvested, the consortium washes, processes, and chops the
plants to their preferred specifications, and then gently dries the raw
materials in customized dehydrators to ensure potency and freshness. Once the
herbs are dried, the farmers get paid. The consortium is responsible for marketing
and distributing the herbs to TCM practitioners around the country.
The raw
materials are also continuously reviewed for quality and identity, with input from
practitioners, like Bachmann, and from practitioners’ customers. The input is
invaluable, according to Crews. “We are constantly reviewing the product, looking
at form, taste, and smell,” she said.
The
meticulous care for the plants is paying off, according to Bachmann, who is
familiar with the properties of herbs shipped from China. “What we have found
is that the herbs grown here have a high intensity in scent and flavor.” As AHGC
began comparing its herbs with product from China, it found consistently
superior organoleptic profiles in the US-grown material, Bachmann said. “I
didn’t understand the difference until I tasted our chrysanthemum. The flavor
profile fits much better with the traditional uses than the samples I have
accessed previously. I won’t say the plants from China are bland, but they
don’t pack the same punch.”
In this era of herbal ingredient scrutiny and increased focus on identification
and adulteration, the consortium acknowledges that it does not currently test
products for potential contaminants. Crews explained that the “AHGC is based at
a small non-profit Chinese medicine clinic and has not achieved the size to
afford these types of tests” (oral communication, October 24, 2017). “Since
contaminant concern is one of the primary reasons US practitioners and product
makers are interested in domestically grown herbs, we are committed to doing
everything we can to produce and deliver clean products that will pass
standardized tests for both chemical and biological contaminants, even if we can't
yet afford to pay for them ourselves,” she said.
Although
AHGC’s primary market is practitioners of TCM, the consortium also sells to dietary
supplement manufacturers that produce various products (e.g., formulas,
tinctures, and granules). According to Crews, these practitioners and
manufacturers test the herbs and reject the botanical materials that do not
pass inspection. “We understand that as we grow, [authentication] is one of the
many future steps we will need to take as a business,” she said. “In the
meantime, we work under the assumption that any material we grow has the
potential to be tested at any time by any customer, and we have implemented
many practices to support producing the cleanest herbal raw material possible.”
The
consortium also takes extensive measures to qualify growers and assure soil
quality, and its processing center is inspected by the Virginia Department of
Agriculture as required by law. (In Virginia, the herbs are considered dried
agricultural food products and are therefore subject to food-grade standards.)
The Blue Ridge Center’s processing facility also is subject to inspections, and
as a part of that process, the water supply has been tested to ensure that no
contaminants are being added in the wash process.
Looking to the Future
The AHGC’s
program has come a long way in the three years since its inception. At the time
of this writing (October 2017), the consortium is preparing to finish its first
root harvest. The Blue Ridge Center’s herb garden now serves as a living seed
garden that provides high-quality seed for the AHGC growers. The program now
also receives support from the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization
Commission, which requires that the consortium serve growers within the
historical range of tobacco (Nicotiana
tabacum, Solanaceae)-growing counties, a region that encompasses farms
within about a 150-mile radius of the Blue Ridge Center. As the program grows,
the consortium hopes to work with farmers outside of that region as well.
Fisher
and Crews are constantly looking to the future and discussing the appropriate
scale for the consortium that will allow it to remain sustainable both
financially and agriculturally. Demand for Chinese herbs in North America is
still somewhat small, Crews noted, so there is a risk of getting too big to
maintain the current standards, impeccable processing, and grower support. “Our
goal is not to compete with China, but to provide exceptional quality and meet
the demand for these herbs in the United States,” she said.
At
the same time, Crews said, the consortium is at a critical juncture when it
comes to getting support and business from the market. “Our products have been
reviewed as exceptional and grown to the highest standards,” she said “The
question is, ‘Will people be able to pay for the production costs?’ If
practitioners aren’t willing to pay enough to support the farmer, then these
herbs won’t be available.”
—Karen Raterman
Photo credit: All photos courtesy of the Blue Ridge Center for Chinese Medicine. Top: AHGC logo Middle: Platycodon grandiflorus (Campanulaceae) Bottom: An array of dried herbs
References
- About
the herbs. Appalachian Herb Growers Consortium website. Available at: https://appalachianherbgrowers.com/about/about-the-herbs/?v=7516fd43adaa.
Accessed October 11, 2017.
- Harris
R. Chinese herbs growing in Virginia. Radio WVTC (Virginia Public Radio).
Available at: http://wvtf.org/post/chinese-herbs-growing-virginia.
Accessed October 11, 2017.
- Homepage.
Appalachian Herb Growers Consortium website. Available at: https://appalachianherbgrowers.com/?v=7516fd43adaa.
Accessed October 11, 2017.
- Blue
Ridge Center for Chinese Medicine. Appalachian Herb Growers Consortium website.
Available at: https://appalachianherbgrowers.com/about/blue-ridge-center-for-chinese-medicine/?v=7516fd43adaa.
Accessed October 11, 2017.
- About
the growers. Appalachian Herb Growers Consortium website. Available at: https://appalachianherbgrowers.com/about/about-the-growers/?v=7516fd43adaa.
Accessed October 11, 2017.
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