The popularity of Chinese medicine may affect supply

Posted by DAAN on July 15, 2008 under Disease, Herbs | Be the First to Comment

As Chinese medicine gains in popularity, some key ingredients may be growing scarce:

The trekkers are searching for caterpillar fungus (Cordyceps sinensis), an elusive fungus that grows on the caterpillar of the Thitarodes ghost moth, which lives at altitudes over 10,000 feet (3,000 meters). A prized medicine believed to boost immunity and increase stamina, caterpillar fungus is a popular cure for everything from cancer to erectile dysfunction among Han Chinese in the nation’s east. (It had been for the Tibetans, too, but now they can’t afford it.) Collected and traded east as early as the Tang dynasty (A.D. 618 to 906), the medicine has long been central to the Tibetan economy. But rising incomes in eastern China are now pushing demand for the fungus, sparking a frenzied collection that exacerbates environmental degradation, sometimes erupts into violence, and threatens the fungus’s very existence.

As China’s economy booms, per capita disposable incomes are rising by as much as 10 percent yearly in the affluent east. Many middle class Chinese are spending some of their extra cash on traditional medicine. Tonics such as caterpillar fungus, believed to ensure good health when taken in soup or steeped in hot water, are in particular demand. Last year, prices for caterpillar fungus doubled in just months. By December, 1.8 ounces (50 grams, or roughly a handful) of prime caterpillar fungus retailed for 25,000 yuan ($3,376). That same month, Chinese headlines exclaimed that 2.2 pounds (one kilogram), enough to last a few months, cost more than a small Mercedes—500,000 yuan ($67,522).

High demand now appears to be endangering supply. “I started picking when I was as young as this boy,” said 48-year-old nomad Buchang from his yak hair tent in this mountain encampment last June, gesturing to his small grandson. “Then, every person could pick 200 pieces per day. Now we find 15.” Indeed, in January a report on medicinal plants from London-based conservation organization Botanic Gardens Conservation International highlighted Cordyceps sinensis as a threatened species.