Chinese Herbs are Getting Sick

Thousands of years ago, people discovered the medicinal value of plants. Traditional Chinese herbal medicine therapy draws on ancient practices and has evolved to a sophisticated diagnostic system and has risen to the world stage as a global icon for its unique and natural healing qualities.

Autor*in Louisa Wong -, 02.20.14

Thousands of years ago, people discovered the medicinal value of plants. Traditional Chinese herbal medicine therapy draws on ancient practices and has evolved to a sophisticated diagnostic system and has risen to the world stage as a global icon for its unique and natural healing qualities. In light of other food scandals that have caused customers to lose faith in Made-in-China products, is it safe to consume the healing Chinese herbal plants?

The answer is – NO. A recent campaign launched by Greenpeace East Asia  (GPEA) revealed an investigation report titled “Chinese Herbs: Elixir of Health or Pesticide Cocktail? – Investigation Report on Chinese Herbs and Pesticides”. The independent research team bought Chinese herbal products from shops in seven key export markets: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA. These samples were then sent to an independent science labolatory and were tested for pesticide residues. The astonishing finding was that they found “a cocktail of pesticide residue on the herbs”. 32 out of the 36 samples collected contained three or more kinds of pesticides while “Nearly half of the samples (17 of the 36 samples) contained residues of pesticides classified by the WHO as extremely or highly hazardous. These include carbofuran, phorate, and triazophos, albeit at low concentrations.” Many of the pesticides found are illegal in China or classified as ‘highly hazardous’ or ‘extremely hazardous’ by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The report concluded that high pesticide usage is common in export-oriented Chinese herbal plant production due to the soaring global demand of medicinal herbs and dehydrated herbal plants for export markets. Herbs are now grown in large scale industrial farms that are heavily dependent on chemical pesticides. These farms are mostly run by private enterprises and are primarily for export to emerging European and North American markets.

Where are the ethical values of Chinese food producing companies? What they are thinking by producing medicinal herbs that poison instead of heal people? As suggested by GPEA, the only way out is to adopt a more agro-ecological farming system.  Unlike industrial agriculture, sustainable agriculture does not harm the environment with genetic engineering modified technology, chemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. A farming system that generates great economic benefits is not necessarily sustainable, as we have to take into account a number of extraneous factors (such as the costs we pay for environmental deterioration). A sustainable farming system should preserve our mother earth and not only bring socio-economic values to enterprise-operated farms, but also to small-scale farmers and local communities for their resilient development.

It is perhaps a wakeup call for us to remind ourselves the radical but sadly forgotten economic idea back in the 20th century —‘Small is beautiful’.

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