By Eric Brand

People often ask me about the situation with organic herbs in China. China’s huge population and robust industrial growth have caused any number of media articles to focus on the delicate state of its natural environment. Given that practitioners and patients alike are concerned about access to safe herbs grown without unnecessary chemicals, it is no surprise that the organic question comes up again and again in our community.

...

Just as with any other China-related topic, to understand the state of organic herbs in China one has to understand the reality of Chinese society itself. China is a paradoxical place that is chaotic yet sophisticated at the same time. Likewise, the world of Chinese medicine (and its related products) has both extremes. Elite experts share the world with mediocre practitioners and premium botanical products exist alongside inferior grades. At the elite level, fantastic herbs from pristine natural environments still abound, but the novice will quickly find themselves confronted with bottom-shelf decrepit specimens or downright fakes during the learning curve. While few practitioners have had the luxury of pursuing specialty subjects such as herbal quality discernment (what to look for in terms of production regions, different species and grades, etc.), nearly all practitioners are concerned about buying clean, safe herbal products.

How much of the Chinese materia medica is grown organically? To what degree is wild-harvesting going on, and to what degree is it sustainable? As Chinese medicine expands worldwide, will wild-harvesting remain sustainable? Are pesticide residues and other toxic byproducts of industrial farming a major concern in our industry? These are questions that we all are curious about. While I am not an expert in Chinese agriculture by any means, I’d like to share some of my observations from inside the industry.

First off, a significant number of Chinese herbs are wildcrafted. I have a fascinating Chinese book that breaks down the cultivated vs. wild-harvested estimates for each herb, and it allows one to get a relatively clear picture about the scope of wildcrafted vs. cultivated material on the market. According to my teacher Zhao Zhongzhen, by species about 30% of the items used in Chinese medicine are cultivated and about 70% are wildcrafted; in terms of weight, about 50% of the material on the market is cultivated and 50% is wildcrafted.

Many Chinese herbs are basically abundant weeds in particular local environments, so the natural wild supply is able to meet market demand. Other items are relatively limited in the wild and take many years to grow, so cultivated sources are used to supplement the wild population. In many instances both the wild and cultivated products exist on the market, but at different price ranges (Rou Gui and Bai Zhu are examples of this). Still other items are nearly extinct in the wild, making wild forms prohibitively expensive or unethical from an ecological perspective (for example, Tian Ma, Shi Hu, or Ren Shen).

The cultivation of many Chinese herbal products has been going on for centuries, and a variety of traditional techniques have been passed down for generations. For example, the best Ren Shen is still cultivated in forests instead of fields, and Shi Hu is grown on trees and other hosts. Many small family farms in China still use relatively traditional and primitive farming methods, and on the whole very few herbs have problems with pesticides and other potentially toxic chemicals. Nonetheless, pesticides remain a concern for some items (for example, Jin Yin Hua and Ren Shen are particularly notorious).

Often, widely cultivated herbs such as Ren Shen have a variety of different product choices on the market that reflect different growing environments. In the case of Ren Shen, one can buy forest-grown “beyond organic” roots, field-grown “certified organic” roots, “wu gong hai” (literally “non-harmful,” basically GAP) roots, and standard commercial field-grown roots. China is only just now implementing a new generation of laws that will narrow the range of acceptable growing techniques for ginseng, so currently the standard commercial grades can be further divided based on whether they also meet the more strict requirements of nations such as Korea and Japan. Naturally, the cost varies between the commercial roots, the organic roots, and the half-wild roots, so practitioners need to decide how much organic growing conditions are truly worth when it comes time to vote with the almighty dollar.

Wild products are generally thought to be superior to cultivated products for most items. However, there are a variety of limiting factors when it comes to using wild products and there are a number of examples where the cultivated product is preferred. In some situations, wild populations are completely exhausted and only cultivated products can be reliably found (Tian Ma, which is actually cultivated based on cell culture, is such an example). In other situations, the wild product is cheap and readily available (such as Chi Shao) and most of the product on the market comes from wild sources. For still other items, only the cultivated form is appropriate for medicinal use (for example, Bai Shao only comes from cultivated white peony, and safe, true Sang Ji Sheng should only come from a parasitic mistletoe plant grown on mulberry trees).

Organic Certification in China

In China, there is a lot of focus on agricultural techniques that are collectively known as GAP (Good Agricultural Practices). GAP certification basically puts limits on things like pesticide residues, heavy metals, and other potentially dangerous substances. The GAP movement has received strong support by China’s government and its State Administration of TCM, and GAP farms for Chinese herbs can be found across the country. GAP cultivation does not ban all pesticides outright, but it does limit the time period of their application to ensure that harmful residues do not remain in the product at the time of harvest.

While the GAP standard is a huge step forward for Chinese herbal medicine, true organic certification is in its infancy in China. Only a small number of herbs are cultivated at certified organic facilities, and China largely lacks its own reliable domestic organic certification. Most organic certification is done by European third-parties, and the process is expensive and occasionally prone to problems with corruption. While there is no doubt that organic certification in China will advance exponentially over the next decade, at the moment it is hard to find certified organic sources for more than a few dozen herbs.

In actuality, there is a lot of herbal material in China that is organically grown or ethically wildcrafted (which many see as one step better than organic). However, finding CERTIFIED organic products is much harder. Complicating the issue, only large companies with deep pockets can jump through the organic certification hoops, which will ultimately push out many of the small family farms that are currently key sources of uncertified organic herbs. I am keen to see organic certification expand in the Chinese herbal world, but at the same time I fear that the cost of certification will leave out small traditional farmers and move the field more into the domination of big, monocrop agricultural companies (much like we see in the U.S.). Perhaps we will also see more development in things such as “farmer’s pledge,” “transitional organic,” and/or “fair trade” crops.

I constantly hear support for organic products here at the office, and Blue Poppy is one of the most environmentally conscious companies that I’ve ever encountered. Our office is wind-powered and we have a zero waste facility. Our trash is recycled and composted to minimize landfill waste and half the staff travels exclusively by bicycle or public transit. The few cars in our parking lot are mostly hybrids or tiny fuel-efficient vehicles, and we are constantly trying to reduce our carbon footprint on everything from office paper waste to the books we publish. When it comes to herbs, we are constantly seeking GAP and organic sources of raw materials, and we endeavor to maximize the range of certified organic products that we offer. For example, later this year we will be offering some great certified organic, 3rd party-tested ginseng in granule form.

Beyond the general environmental commitment I see here at the Blue Poppy office, we have really put our money where our mouth is when it comes to product testing. Every batch of every product has been third-party tested for microbiological contaminants, heavy metals, and hundreds of pesticide residues. Consequently, we have amassed a true evidence base on the prevalence of pesticides over the course of many years. Few companies undertake the expense of such comprehensive pesticide testing, so the insight we have from running thousands of independent tests is relatively rare.

Based on the results of thousands of tests, it seems fairly safe to say that pesticide problems are not a major concern for most Chinese herbs. In all our years of testing, we’ve only had to reject a few batches of raw materials because of pesticide concerns. On the one hand, this is due to good quality control when it comes to raw materials, and it is likely that vigilance on Blue Poppy’s part has played a huge role in keeping the testing results pristine. However, on the other hand the sheer volume of data suggests that pesticide residues are only an isolated problem in Chinese herbs on the whole.

Many herbs (such as Huang Qi) simply grow well in their native environments and need little in the way of nutrients or pesticides to begin with. Others are difficult to grow and require special techniques or cannot be cultivated at all. With a few exceptions, most herbs grown in China test pretty clean when it comes to pesticides, so ultimately my general impression is that excessive concern about pesticides is unwarranted. There are a few key items to be aware of and safety-conscious companies like Blue Poppy will continue to focus on strict testing regimes, but generally speaking it seems that the problem is not too dramatic on the whole.