Supply-demand gap for endangered Chinese medicinal herbs expected to ease within 5 years
China's first special plan on the protection and development of Chinese medicinal herbs proposes that by 2020, the protection and monitoring system for Chinese medicinal herb resources will be basically complete, the supply-demand gap for endangered Chinese medicinal herbs will be effectively eased, the supply of Chinese medicinal herb products will be sufficient, quality will continue to improve, and market prices will be stable
On the 2014 list of price increases for Chinese medicinal herbs, goji berry (Lycium barbarum) unquestionably took the champion spot. Because goji berry contains a variety of nutrients and can be used both as medicine and as food, last year not only did domestic demand increase, but exports also rose in both volume and price.
At present, as people pay more attention to health, Chinese medicinal herbs are moving from medicines to health products and onto people's dining tables. However, because Chinese medicinal herbs require a certain growth cycle and a suitable environment, how to meet people's current demand for Chinese medicinal herbs and reduce people's concerns about their safety and prices has become a focus of considerable public attention.
Recently, the "Plan for the Protection and Development of Chinese Medicinal Herbs (2015-2020)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"), jointly formulated by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments, was officially released. This is China's first national-level special plan on the protection and development of Chinese medicinal herbs. The "Plan" proposes that by 2020, China's protection and monitoring system for Chinese medicinal herb resources will be basically complete, the supply-demand gap for endangered Chinese medicinal herbs will be effectively eased, the supply of Chinese medicinal herb products will be sufficient, quality will continue to improve, market prices will be stable, and the level of protection and development of Chinese medicinal herbs will be significantly raised. To this end, the reporter interviewed Mao Weiming, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and Wang Guoqiang, Director of the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, on related issues.
Resource monitoring sites cover 80% of production areas
The special supervision and sampling inspection results for Chinese medicinal herbs and prepared slices released by the State Food and Drug Administration in September 2014 showed that among 772 batches of samples from 10 varieties sampled, 93 batches were found upon testing not to meet the specified standards. The quality situation of the sampled Chinese medicinal herbs and prepared slices is not optimistic, and problems such as dyeing, weight adding, adulteration and mixing in impurities remain relatively prominent.
In 2013, the results of the "Report on Pesticide Contamination of Chinese Medicinal Herbs" published by the international environmental organization Greenpeace said that 40% of sampled Chinese medicinal herbs in China contained banned pesticides, and 70% of sampled Chinese medicinal herbs had pesticide residues. Such results left Chinese people deeply conflicted.
Mao Weiming said that at present, China's protection and development of Chinese medicinal herbs faces severe challenges. On the one hand, due to reduced land resources and deterioration of the ecological environment, some wild Chinese medicinal herb resources have been lost or exhausted; on the other hand, production technology for Chinese medicinal herbs is relatively backward, with emphasis on yield rather than quality, and the abuse of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and growth regulators is relatively common, leading to a decline in the quality of Chinese medicinal herbs, affecting the quality of traditional Chinese medicine and clinical efficacy, and damaging the reputation of traditional Chinese medicine.
Previously, in order to effectively protect wild Chinese medicinal herb resources and solve problems such as the decline in the quality of Chinese medicinal herbs and large price fluctuations, the National Development and Reform Commission, together with relevant departments, had proposed 9 policy measures including “increasing the planning and support for the production of Chinese medicinal herbs” and the "Departmental Division of Work Plan for Implementing Comprehensive Rectification Policy Measures for the Prices of Chinese Medicinal Herbs". Therefore, solving the problems of Chinese medicinal herbs requires efforts on multiple fronts. At present, in order to achieve high-quality and safe Chinese medicinal herbs, sufficient supply, stable prices, promote the sustained and healthy development of the traditional Chinese medicine industry, and meet the people's growing health needs, 12 departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly compiled the "Plan".
The "Plan" not only proposes development goals for 2020, but also puts forward some specific indicators: in terms of the protection of Chinese medicinal herb resources, the monitoring sites and technical information service network for Chinese medicinal herb resources will cover more than 80% of county-level Chinese medicinal herb production areas; in terms of developing the cultivation and breeding of Chinese medicinal herbs, 100 kinds of wild Chinese medicinal herbs listed in the "Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China" will be cultivated and bred; the output of cultivated and bred Chinese medicinal herbs will grow by an average of 10% per year; the proportion of Chinese medicinal herb raw materials with identified places of origin used by traditional Chinese medicine production enterprises will reach 50%, and the rate of major raw material bases for the top 100 traditional Chinese medicine production enterprises will reach 60%; in terms of strengthening supervision of the production and circulation of Chinese medicinal herbs, the rate of standardized centralized warehousing of Chinese medicinal herbs in the circulation link will reach 70%; the quality standards of 100 kinds of Chinese medicinal herbs will be significantly improved; and the coverage rate of national quality supervision and sampling inspection of Chinese medicinal herbs will reach 100%.
Properly handle the relationship between protection and development
⟧ The Qinling Mountains are not only the geographical dividing line between southern and northern China, but also have the reputation of being a "gathering place of southern and northern plants and a repository of southern and northern biological species." However, the results of the fourth national survey of traditional Chinese medicine resources currently underway show that due to reasons such as mountain excavation and mining, tourism development, and random gathering and digging by herb farmers, traditional Chinese medicine resources in the Qinling Mountains have been severely damaged. According to incomplete statistics, in the past 30 years, more than 10 kinds of traditional Chinese medicines have disappeared in the Qinling region. For this reason, Wen Jianmin, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and director of the Orthopedics Department of Wangjing Hospital of the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, submitted a proposal calling for strengthening the protection of traditional Chinese medicine resources and suggesting the establishment of a national protection base for Chinese herbal medicine resources in the Qinling Mountains.
Mao Weiming told the reporter that over the years, with the growth of demand for Chinese medicinal herbs, unprecedented contradictions have arisen between the use and protection of Chinese medicinal herbs. In response, during the drafting of the "Plan", the most important task was how to properly handle the relationship between the protection and development of Chinese medicinal herbs. Chinese medicinal herbs are the material foundation for the inheritance and development of the traditional Chinese medicine cause and are strategic resources related to the national economy and people's livelihood, but excessive collection and use of wild resources will cause depletion of biological resources and destruction of the natural environment. The "Plan" clearly proposes to adhere to promoting protection through development and seeking development through protection, and by scientifically developing the production of Chinese medicinal herbs, reduce dependence on wild Chinese medicinal herbs and achieve coordination between the sustained development of the traditional Chinese medicine industry and ecological environmental protection.
In addition, the "Plan" proposes three basic principles: adhere to combining market leadership with government guidance, combining resource protection with industrial development, and combining increasing output with improving quality. Specifically, this means being market-oriented, integrating social resources, highlighting the main role of enterprises in the protection and development of Chinese medicinal herbs, while giving play to the government's roles in planning guidance, policy incentives and organization and coordination, and creating a standardized and orderly market competition environment; vigorously promoting the tapping of traditional techniques, scientific and technological innovation, and transformation and application, promoting scientific cultivation and breeding of Chinese medicinal herbs, effectively strengthening resource protection, reducing dependence on wild Chinese medicinal herb resources, and achieving coordination between the sustained development of the traditional Chinese medicine industry and ecological environmental protection; strengthening the awareness of quality first, improving the standard system for Chinese medicinal herbs, raising the level of standardization, scale and industrialization of Chinese medicinal herb production, and ensuring the market supply and quality of Chinese medicinal herbs.
Wang Guoqiang also said that the "Plan" proposes a series of safeguard measures in areas such as improving relevant laws, regulations and systems and the price formation mechanism for Chinese medicinal herbs, strengthening industry supervision, increasing fiscal and financial support, and accelerating the training of professional personnel. Some policy measures are highly innovative, such as proposing that when registering traditional Chinese medicines and natural medicines, the place of origin of the Chinese medicinal herb raw materials should be clearly identified, and that the use of endangered wild Chinese medicinal herbs must be accompanied by an assessment of resource supply conditions; and establishing a price formation mechanism for Chinese medicinal herbs that reflects production and operating costs, market supply and demand, and the degree of resource scarcity. These will all play a positive role in the protection and development of Chinese medicinal herbs.
Build a quality assurance system for Chinese medicinal herbs
“In the past, a prescription prescribed by a doctor amounted to only half a bag; now the same formula requires a full bag.” At the outpatient pharmacy window of Beijing Kuanjie Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, an elderly person took the 7 large bags of Chinese medicine handed out by the pharmacist and placed them in a small cart. The elderly person said that seeing a traditional Chinese medicine doctor now is not as quick to produce results as before, and it is unclear whether it is because the doctors' level is lacking or because the medicine is not good.
Qian Zhongzhi, chief scientist of the Chinese Pharmacopoeia Commission, said that the traditional Chinese medicine industry is a resource-dependent industry. As people's demand for Chinese medicinal herbs grows, relying solely on wild resources can no longer support the sustainable development of the industry. Therefore, wild tending and artificial cultivation have become the main means.
It is understood that cultivation is the main means of solving the shortage of traditional Chinese medicine resources, but if it violates the rules and is casually cultivated across regions like agricultural products, it will affect the quality of the medicinal materials. Zhou Xun, deputy secretary-general of the Chinese Medicinal Materials Market Special Committee of the China Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine, told the reporter that many people now say traditional Chinese medicine is not effective in treating diseases, but in fact part of the reason is that there are problems with the quality of Chinese medicinal herbs, and the genuine regional medicinal materials that have been passed down for nearly 2,000 years are no longer genuine.
So how can these problems be solved? Wang Guoqiang pointed out that the "Plan" proposes that by 2020, the production of commonly used Chinese medicinal herbs in China will develop steadily, and the scientific and technological level of Chinese medicinal herbs will be greatly improved, with quality continuing to improve. Therefore, in the future, the 2020 development goals will be achieved through the completion of seven main tasks.
These seven tasks are: First, implement a wild Chinese medicinal herb resource protection project, carry out the fourth national survey of traditional Chinese medicine resources, establish a national dynamic monitoring network for traditional Chinese medicine resources, and establish a protection system for traditional Chinese medicine germplasm resources; second, implement a high-quality Chinese medicinal herb production project, build cultivation and breeding bases for endangered and scarce Chinese medicinal herbs, production bases for bulk high-quality Chinese medicinal herbs, and breeding bases for improved varieties of Chinese medicinal herbs, and develop the economy of Chinese medicinal herb production areas; third, implement an action for technological innovation in Chinese medicinal herbs, strengthen basic research on Chinese medicinal herbs, inherit and innovate traditional production techniques for Chinese medicinal herbs, make breakthroughs in breeding techniques for endangered and scarce Chinese medicinal herbs, develop modern production techniques for Chinese medicinal herbs, and strengthen the comprehensive development and utilization of Chinese medicinal herbs; fourth, implement an innovation project for the production organization of Chinese medicinal herbs, cultivate modern Chinese medicinal herb production enterprises, promote joint construction and sharing of Chinese medicinal herb bases, and improve the level of organization of Chinese medicinal herb production; fifth, build a quality assurance system for Chinese medicinal herbs, improve and perfect standards for Chinese medicinal herbs, improve good manufacturing and good business practice standards for the production and operation of Chinese medicinal herbs and the quality inspection and testing system for Chinese medicinal herbs, and establish a whole-process traceability system covering major varieties of Chinese medicinal herbs; sixth, build a production service system for Chinese medicinal herbs, build a production technical service network and a production information service platform, and strengthen the supply guarantee for Chinese medicinal herbs; seventh, build a modern circulation system for Chinese medicinal herbs, improve industry norms for the circulation of Chinese medicinal herbs, and build a modern logistics system for Chinese medicinal herbs.
Wang Guoqiang said that next, relevant departments will further refine, break down and implement the main goals, specific tasks and safeguard measures determined in the "Plan", clarify responsibilities, strengthen coordination, and give play to joint efforts to jointly achieve the goals of protecting and developing Chinese medicinal herbs.