of our supply chain, we cannot separate the people involved from the herbs themselves. How much do we know about the people at the beginning of the herbal supply chain? Are they part-time growers or gatherers seeking to supplement their income from other sources, or are they working as employees? Do they belong to a cooperative or growing community, or are they working alone? What are the economic circumstances in the community where the herbs are sourced? What kind of thought pattern was prevalent during the harvest? It is pretty tough to think positive healing thoughts if you and your family depend on the income from these herbs to make the difference between eating and going hungry.
There are so many questions, it would be impossible to know the answers to all of these directly for ourselves unless we grow or gather our own herbs. Perhaps what matters most is that we are aware of the issues and we recognize that as herb purchasers we are a link in the chain from soil to patient. If we are buying in herbs, we need to trust that our suppliers have asked the right questions and sourced wisely. A good interim solution is to choose herbs that have been grown or gathered according to an appropriate certification scheme.
Biodynamic agriculture and horticulture is organic in nature, but it has metaphysical and spiritual roots that organic production does not. Biodynamic certification (known as Demeter certification in the United Kingdom) does not allow the use of genetically modified organisms or the use of artificial fertilizers or pesticides. It places great importance on the making of compost, fortified by adding positive intention and carefully made preparations that are also applied directly to the land. Biodynamic production aims to create farms that are self-sustaining organisms, to farm ‘regeneratively’ rather than ‘just’ sustainably. Biodynamics is as interconnected as an officially certified production system gets. My spiritual teacher, Akong Rinpoché, liked biodynamics a great deal. He once told me that it contained elements very similar to the Tibetan understanding of respecting and caring for the environment.
Next is organic certification. Organic certification for herb growers offers a guarantee to the consumer that environmental concerns have been addressed in the growing, harvesting, processing, and packaging stages of production. The aim is for sustainability, taking care of the soil, the environment, and wider resources through the use of carefully sourced inputs and maximum use of recycling within the farm or horticultural business. Pesticides and artificial fertilizers are avoided. Natural habitats and wildlife are safeguarded. Workers are treated fairly. There are many different organic certification schemes.
In general, all certification schemes rely on checking facts and providing assurances to customers. Checking and inspections are an inevitable part of this. If you buy an organically certified product, you can be sure that it has been produced according to the organic standards of the certifying organization. Producers have to complete a significant amount of paperwork for record-keeping and in preparing for the inspector's visit to the farm. Larger businesses can afford to employ people to help with this, but smaller businesses can find it an unwelcome burden when added to the pressures of working on the land and producing a product. As a result, many small businesses opt to follow the guidelines ‘unofficially’ and avoid the administrative burden of compliance and inspections.
I had long felt that choosing organically produced food and herbs was a positive way in which we can make our environmentally conscious voices heard more widely. The point of certification is that it provides surety about the way each crop has been produced, so I agree that it is a very valuable attribute for growers to aspire to. Having worked for a certification body for seven years, I know the hard work that is involved and the dedication of the certification staff, but I can also see that organic produce may not always be ‘better’ for the environment than non-organic. Choosing to buy from local organically certified producers is, without doubt, a very sound strategy, but if there are none local to you, a little research may reveal uncertified growers producing beautiful wholesome ‘untreated’ crops. If these growers are local to us, we can form our own relationship with them and see their production methods for ourselves. By simply always choosing ‘organically grown’ in our wholesale catalogues, we may actually be ordering herbs that have been grown in quite an intensive way and may have been shipped large distances using unsustainable transport methods.
Once you start thinking about what is best, no sourcing decision is easy. The important thing, though, is to actually think about it. Just as we all do our best with our choice of the foods that we aim to eat, so we need to do our best with the information we have available about the herbs that we buy. Organic production guarantees that no pesticides have been used and workers have a ‘fair and adequate’ quality of life, but it does not guarantee that the herbs are, for example, free from insect larvae. To have confidence in the herbs that we intend to work with, we need to either know the circumstances of the grower or trust our supplier to build that relationship on our behalf and carry out rigorous quality control testing.
Although organic certification ensures that the workforce has a ‘fair and adequate’ quality of life, Fair Trade certification goes further than this. It aims to promote the sharing of benefits from trade with people all along the supply chain. The Fair Trade Foundation tends to favour small producers, although some larger producers can apply to join the standard, provided that they meet certain specified criteria.
FairWild certification has a different emphasis. It was created in 2008 in order to extend the fair ethos to wildcrafted products and to consider the people at the start of the wildcrafted herbal supply chain. By looking after those who traditionally wildcraft herbal medicines, FairWild certification aims to promote the conservation of natural habitats and herb collecting as an economically viable way of life. If precious natural resources are more economically and socially valuable, they stand a much better chance of being cared for. The FairWild standard is a really positive development in terms of sustainable and fair wild plant harvesting. It is definitely worth choosing herbs that are FairWild certified if you are buying in wildcrafted herbs. The reality, though, is that FairWild certification still applies only to a relatively small number of wildcrafted species. If you can't find FairWild certified herbs, please ask your suppliers to consider stocking them.
Table 1 shows the species listed on the FairWild Foundation website as being available in February 2017.
United Plant Savers is a not-for-profit organization established to raise awareness of, and to promote conservation of, rare and endangered plants, together with their habitats, in the United States and Canada. In recent years there has been a huge explosion of demand for herbs and herbal products, and this has placed more pressure on wild plant resources all over the world. Habitat destruction and over-harvesting is a widespread threat to wild medicinal plants. By bringing these issues to the attention of herbal consumers and processors, United Plant Savers are doing valuable work in encouraging more sustainable sourcing of wild medicines.
Table 1 FairWild certified herb availability, February 2017
| Zimbabwe | Baobab fruit, Adansonia digitata |
| Bosnia Herzegovina | Rubus idaeus, Rubus fruticosus, Urtica dioica, Taraxacum officinale, Sambucus nigra, Tilia platyphyllos, Tilia cordata, Tilia tomentosa |
| Bulgaria | Tilia tomentosa, Rubus fruticosus, Urtica dioica, Sambucus nigra, Malva sylvestris |
| Georgia | Glycyrrhiza glabra, Rosa canina |
| Kazakhstan | Rubus idaeus and Glycyrrhiza uralensis |
| India | Terminalia chebula and Terminalia bellirica |
| Spain | Glycyrrhiza glabra |
| Serbia | Rosa canina |
| Poland | Achillea millefolium, Juniperus communis, Tilia cordata, Tilia platyphyllos, Rubus fruticosus, Urtica dioica, Sambucus nigra, Taraxacum officinale |
| Hungary | Rosa canina, Urtica dioica, Tilia cordata / Tilia platyphyllos, Sambucus nigra |
