The future of medicinal herb cultivation will tend toward base-oriented development

Recently, the General Office of the State Council forwarded the "Protection and Development Plan for Medicinal Herbs (2015-2020)" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine and other departments, making comprehensive arrangements for the protection of medicinal herb resources and the development of the medicinal herb industry in China at present and in the period ahead. This is China's first national-level plan concerning the protection and development of medicinal herbs.

The plan points out that medicinal herbs are the material foundation for the inheritance and development of traditional Chinese medicine and are strategic resources vital to the national economy and people's livelihood. Protecting and developing medicinal herbs is of great significance for deepening the reform of the pharmaceutical and healthcare systems, improving people's health, developing strategic emerging industries, increasing farmers' incomes and promoting ecological civilization.

Based on the current status of the protection and development of medicinal herbs, the Plan sets out development goals for 2020: the resource protection and monitoring system for medicinal herbs will be basically improved, the contradiction between supply and demand for endangered medicinal herbs will be effectively alleviated, and the production of commonly used medicinal herbs will develop steadily; the technological level of medicinal herbs will be greatly raised and quality will continue to improve; and a modern production and circulation system for medicinal herbs will be preliminarily established, with sufficient product supply.

Wang Guoqiang, head of the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said: "The plan sets out two specific indicators. In terms of medicinal herb resource protection, the monitoring stations and technical information service network for medicinal herb resources will cover more than 80% of county-level medicinal herb production areas; in terms of developing the cultivation and breeding of medicinal herbs, 100 species of wild medicinal herbs included in the Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China will be cultivated and bred; the output of cultivated and bred medicinal herbs will grow by an average of 10% annually; the proportion of medicinal herb raw materials with determined places of origin used by traditional Chinese medicine manufacturers will reach 50%, and the base-oriented rate of main raw materials for the top 100 traditional Chinese medicine manufacturers will reach 60%."

Wei Jianhe, doctoral supervisor and deputy director of the Institute of Medicinal Plant Development under the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, told a Beijing Business Today reporter: "The traditional Chinese medicine industry is a resource-dependent industry, and protecting and developing medicinal herbs is of great significance to the development of the traditional Chinese medicine industry. The proposal of the concept of 'base-oriented' in the plan is to encourage capable traditional Chinese medicine manufacturers to build their own medicinal herb cultivation bases and ensure the quality of medicinal herbs. The concept of base-oriented includes the three aspects of large-scale, standardized and industrialized operations. Of course, this does not exclude cultivation by individual rural households. Several individual households can be organized by enterprises, with unified technical guidance and so on, to achieve standardized operations." Asked whether base-oriented cultivation of medicinal herbs would increase the costs of pharmaceutical enterprises, Wei Jianhe said: "Intensive and standardized cultivation reduces costs and improves quality through scientific and technological means. In the long run, it will not increase the costs of pharmaceutical enterprises, but will also achieve high-quality cultivation at low cost and change the current situation of 'good doctors but no good medicine'."

The Plan specifies seven main tasks: first, implement a wild 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 cultivation resources; second, implement a high-quality medicinal herb production project, build cultivation and breeding bases for endangered and scarce medicinal herbs, production bases for bulk high-quality medicinal herbs and breeding bases for improved medicinal herb varieties, and develop the economy of medicinal herb production areas; third, implement a technological innovation action for medicinal herbs, strengthen basic research on medicinal herbs, inherit and innovate traditional medicinal herb production techniques, make breakthroughs in breeding techniques for endangered and scarce medicinal herbs, develop modern production techniques for medicinal herbs and strengthen the comprehensive development and utilization of medicinal herbs; fourth, implement an innovation project for the organization of medicinal herb production, cultivate modern medicinal herb production enterprises, promote the joint construction and sharing of medicinal herb bases and raise the level of organization in medicinal herb production; fifth, build a quality assurance system for medicinal herbs, improve and perfect medicinal herb standards, improve the quality management regulations for the production and operation of medicinal herbs and the quality inspection and testing system for medicinal herbs, and establish a whole-process traceability system covering major medicinal herb varieties; sixth, build a production service system for medicinal herbs, build a production technical service network and a production information service platform, and strengthen the supply guarantee for medicinal herbs; seventh, build a modern circulation system for medicinal herbs, improve industry regulations for the circulation of medicinal herbs and build a modern logistics system for medicinal herbs.