This is definitely an excellent mind set to cultivate. My point here is that, in sourcing our own herbs direct from the land, we inevitably generate this value and respect without any effort. It flows quite naturally, due to the amount of time, care, and intention that goes into the process of growing and gathering.
My herb store is a repository of memories as well as herbs.
When I first started in practice as a medical herbalist, I had the attitude that I was ‘using’ herbs to help people get better. Over time, I gradually realized that I was thinking more along the lines of that I was ‘working with’ herbs to help people get better. Now I am convinced that I am ‘working for’ the herbs to help them to fulfil their healing destiny and to get them to the patients who need them. I am sure that I am not the only one who thinks in this way.
4
Continuity of supply
Three main factors affect the continuity of supply of herbs. The first is the fact that, by their very nature, they are natural, seasonal products. They are ready to be harvested at a certain time, and at this time enough needs to be harvested to last the entire year. The second, less predictable, factor is that the availability of herbs in a given season can be affected by the climate. There may be wet years, dry years, pest outbreaks, or natural disasters. Each of these will affect the abundance and availability of the herbs that we need. The third is that the supply of herbs through wholesale channels can be affected by changes to the regulatory, trading or legislative landscape or simply through supply and demand. If the demand for a particularly herb falls below a certain threshold, it may not make sense for a supplier to stock it.
As people who work with herbs, we have two main ways of dealing with continuity of supply. One way of tackling it is to treat each herb as a seasonal product that is available only at certain times of the year. This attitude is especially suitable for small artisan businesses producing high-value handmade herbal products. Seasonality can be woven into the story of the business and can become an asset. Limited availability of the products adds a sense of exclusivity, preciousness, and connection with the seasons. Customers understand the need to purchase when things are available, and they do not take year-round availability for granted. However, the ‘when it's gone it's gone’ model is not suitable for therapeutic herbal practices: continuity of supply represents continuity of treatment. Patients doing well on a particular prescription are likely to be disappointed if they are told that no more is available until the herb is ready for harvest the following year. In a therapeutic setting, continuity of supply is very desirable, if not essential.
In harvesting herbs, then, the aim is to store or process sufficient quantity to last the year ahead. Whether you are a family carer, a medical herbalist harvesting for your own needs or a herbal wholesaler sourcing herbs from all over the world, you have to make an informed guess as to how much of each plant you will actually need. A wholesaler will be guided by supply, demand, price, previous sales of particular species, as well as by other factors, such as profit margins, storage space, and keeping quality. Medical herbalists will be guided by the number of patients they expect to see in the course of the year, the frequency of certain presentations and their own prescribing patterns. Someone treating their family with herbs will also need to think about common health situations they are likely to encounter over the year ahead. In all situations, working out quantities that will be needed is most definitely an art, but over the years it is possible to get a pretty good feel for what will be needed. A self-sufficient herbalist has to make a judgement about whether it is feasible to grow or gather all or part of their requirements for each herb. It does not have to be an all-or-nothing scenario. Self-sufficiency is as much an attitude and a goal as it is a definitive statement of sourcing policy.
In practice, the quantity of each herb harvested is guided by the abundance in field and hedgerow. In ‘good’ years it makes sense to harvest extra stock, to act as a buffer for leaner years. I have concluded that being self-sufficient in herbs for a medical practice is a dance within the ebb and flow of the seasons. It is helpful to cultivate an acceptance that herbs present themselves more abundantly in certain years for a reason. I have lost count of the number of times that I have waited anxiously for a herb to be ready for harvest as stocks in my dispensary dwindled. Just when I think that I will have to buy in more stock of that particular herb, I spot the first signs that it is nearly ready to harvest. I rush out to my usual gathering spots and harvest just enough of the early flowers or leaves to keep me going until the main harvest can be taken. There is nothing quite like the satisfaction of bringing in a herb just in time for a patient who needs it.
It is not always possible to get quantities right, but there is a great deal of scope among our herbal community to help each other out. We live in different areas with different climatic factors and habitats. What is abundant in one person's area may be scarce in another's. We can swap herbs or purchase each other's surplus stock. We also have the option to research and buy in high-quality, ethically sourced herbs from wholesalers when needed.
We cannot always rely on being able to source all that we need through wholesale suppliers, however. When I was first studying Western herbal medicine, my tutors often spoke of potential threats to availability of herbs due to regulatory changes and political policies. One of my main herbal tutors and inspiration for my self-sufficient practice, Barbara Howe, would often say that if ‘They’ try to take away our herbs, we need to be able to defy ‘Them’ and grow them ourselves. I remember being surprised the first time I heard her talking in this way. It seemed at odds with the image I had of her as a gentle, wise herbal elder. Images can be misleading, though, and Barbara most definitely had a fire in her belly when it came to protecting herbal medicine and the herbs that she had worked with for years. She was quite right to pass on her concerns to her students. During my time in practice I have seen just how fragile the supply chain for herbs is, and how wider political agendas can have a swift and devastating influence their availability.
At the time that I was studying Western herbal medicine, the implications of pyrrolizidine alkaloids in Comfrey and the risk of it causing veno-occlusive liver disease were first being discussed within the herbal profession. The issue was the subject of many very heated debates among students as well as among our tutors and the different professional associations. Older, more established herbalists seemed more likely to be outraged by what they saw as ill-informed meddling in the traditional practice of herbal medicine, while many newly qualified or student herbalists felt pressure to abide by new guidelines in order to safeguard their future ability to practise. Professional herbal associations differed in their approaches, some preferring to have an ongoing relationship with the regulatory bodies in order to maintain an influence and others feeling it was much better to stay outside any regulation and to fight the process. At the time, these issues became enormously divisive in the field of herbal medicine in the United Kingdom – understandable among a group of people all of whom share a deep passion for herbal medicine and patient care. Discussions about herbs containing pyrrolizidine alkaloids were made more complicated by the enormous variability in the structure of these compounds, a lack of definitive knowledge about their action on the body and differing ideas about how they are broken down. It remains a very complicated issue to this day, and more research is being carried out to increase our understanding of these biological pathways and their implications. The spotlight is now also falling on other constituents, such as arbutin, which is present in Bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) and Damiana (Turnera diffusa), among others. Arbutin is a glycoside of hydroquinone, and some sources claim that there is a theoretical possibility that it could hydrolyse into free hydroquinone. As hydroquinone is restricted in terms of how it can be used and prescribed, some countries have taken the step of also restricting arbutincontaining herbs.
Herbs that trigger safety concerns due to potentially toxic
