Chinese Medicinal Herbs: Opportunities for Domestic Production*

During the past three decades, traditional Chinese medicine, based primarily on plant materials, has been adopted throughout the much of the Western world and become one of the fastest-growing healthcare choices in the United States (P. Darrin, pers. commun.). Evidence of growth in the practice of Chinese medicine is probably best illustrated by the increase in number of licensed Chinese medicine providers in the US, from 5,525 in 1992, to 14,228 today (B. Mitchell, pers. commun.). This increase in traditional Chinese medicine practitioners has increased the demand for medicinal plant material. Yet, practically all of the plant material (cultivated or wildcrafted) used in the practice of traditional Chinese medicine in the US is imported from China (P. Darrin, pers. commun.). Since many of the imported Chinese medicinal plant species are produced in environments similar to environments in the US, the possibility of domestic production of these plants for the US Chinese medicinal market exists. Domestic production of these botanicals would help insure the safety, freshness, and quality of the material.
Although the earliest practitioners of Chinese medicine in the US (many of whom were medical doctors) tended to use only acupuncture, Westerners have come to understand that dietary therapy, including the use of herbs and other botanicals, is central to traditional Chinese medicine. In addition, the practice of traditional Chinese medicine is based on a philosophy (holistic) quite different than the practice of “Western” medicine (Tierra 1998; Zhu 1998). Traditional Chinese medicine defines health as body integrity, adaptability, continuity, and balance with the doctor prescribing traditional plant, animal, and mineral remedies to sustain a self-regulatory status in the body (a balance of yin and yang). This contrasts with Western medicine in which health is defined as the absence of disease symptoms and the doctor diagnoses and prescribes clinically tested medicines to eradicate disease symptoms. Because the majority of plant materials used in Traditional Chinese medicine (amassed over 2000+ years through observations of patients by clinicians) have not been clinically evaluated in randomized, double-blind studies, Western medicine does not generally accept the efficacy or safety of the treatment.
The traditional paradigm of herbal usage in China incorporates three concepts that are relatively unfamiliar to Americans, but which can influence the way herbs are produced, marketed, and used in the US: (1) a nutritive approach in which foods are considered medicinal and some medicinal herbs are considered appropriate for everyday consumption, (2) an understanding that processing techniques used to prepare medicinal plant fractions for consumption affect the energetics, chemistry, and efficacy of the product, and (3) a reliance on traditional formulations to achieve the desired therapeutic result. For traditional Chinese medical practitioners, no firm distinction between food and medicine exists (Yang 1998; Zhu 1998). Indeed, some Chinese medicinal plants, such as those popularly recognized as adaptogens (Astragalus membranaceus root, Lycium chinense fruit, and Schisandra chinensis berries), are already in nutraceutical products in the US, including herbal teas, soft drinks, soups, and trail mixes.

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https://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/ncnu02/v5-491.html