app. Autumn 2018 15Fukuda: Several years ago, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries provided subsidies to local governments to encourage the domestic production of medicinal plants, but in only a few cases did that investment lead to sustained farms. The major reason is that cultivation of these herbs takes time. For botan (Paeonia suffruticosa) for ex-ample, the entire cycle takes eight years, from preparation of the soil to harvest, and then to processing for medicine. For Ginseng (Panax ginseng), soil prepara-tion alone takes five years; only after the soil becomes soft can ginseng be planted. After planting, great care must be taken to prevent the plants from be-ing exposed to sunlight, which takes time and labor.Almost all types of medicinal plants need cool, humid and shady environ-ments with large disparities between day and night temperatures. The hilly areas of Nara prefecture provide such condi-tions. In the past, hoes were used to cul-tivate the soil, and so sloping land was more convenient for tilling; planting and weeding were also easier. Times have changed, and now the slopes are consid-ered disadvantageous because machines cannot be used there. Since there is little flat land in Nara prefecture, herb culti-vation may now be more suitable in sur-rounding prefectures, which have more flat land and where the natural climate is similar to that of the hilly areas of Nara.The major difference between me-dicinal herbs and agricultural products is that herb seeds and seedlings cannot be purchased at local farmers’ coopera-tives or garden centers, as can those of vegetables in general. There are stores specializing in medicinal plant seeds and seedlings in China and Korea, but none in Japan. Only a few pharmaceutical companies and small herbal wholesalers like mine own domestically produced herb seeds and seedlings in Japan. In my dissertation, I concluded by writing, “Those who control the seeds control the world of traditional medicine”— by which I meant to emphasize the impor-tance of preserving herb species and their extreme value. A species that dies out will never be resuscitated.Medicinal plant seeds or seedlings assimilate to new soil, and within a few years will have changed. The Hokkai toki (Angelica acutiloba var. Sugiya-mae Hikino) cultivated in Hokkaido is believed to have originated from Nara during the Meiji era (1868-1912). The quality of Hokkai toki is significantly dif-ferent from toki made in Nara. I served as an instructor of toki cultivation in China, and found that even when the seeds from toki made in Nara were planted, it became different. In only a short time, seeds adapt to the soil and change. Al-though crude drugs may qualify for use in medicine, their taste, smell and other properties will differ in accordance with the soil. If you want to produce the same medicinal plant as before, you have to use the original seeds or seedlings. To this day, we have been preserving origi-nal plants grown from the seeds of the herbs cultivated by our ancestors in Nara, and we must continue doing so into the future.Given the importance of such seeds, why are there are no domestic compa-nies specializing in them?Fukuda: It is not profitable. The price of crude drugs from China is much cheap-er; the quantity and the variety of Japa-nese ones on the market are very limited as well as expensive, thus don’t sell as much. Cultivating medicinal plants in Japan does not pay.Furthermore, medicinal plant cultiva-tion requires a knowledge of pharma-cognosy with which to judge the qual-ity of the plants. You cannot distinguish quality herbs with only a general under-standing of seeds, seedlings and agricul-ture. This is another reason behind the difficulty of medicinal plant cultivation. My father used to say that one must be professional in every regard. You can’t produce quality herbs without exper-tise in both cultivation and process-ing methods. We actually cultivate our fields by hand with hoes, and analyze the components. Because we know the difficulties of cultivating these plants, we can appreciate the pain and sacrifice of our producers, and also respond to the needs of pharmaceutical companies.Connecting Farmers with ManufacturersWhat is the role of herbal wholesalers?Fukuda: As herbal wholesalers, we un-derstand the perspective of both farm-ers and pharmaceutical companies: our essential role is that of intermediary. It is not enough to simply sell seeds. For instance, I need to be involved both in harvesting kihada tree bark and in its processing process so that it can be sold as a crude drug. The cultivation of medicinal plants takes a long time and, depending on the types of herbs, a lot of fertilizer may be used. Repeat cultivation in the same soil may cause damage, so we must make long-term plans regard-ing cultivation. Jio was being cultivated in the city of Sakurai in Nara prefecture, but we needed to temporarily transfer those plants to a neighboring prefecture, as the land was suffering from continued cultivation. There is a plan to return the jio to Sakurai, and when we do so, we have in mind alternative herbs that will be planted at these collaborating farms. Even if you buy herb seeds and start to cultivate them, you are likely to fail if you do not have sufficient know-how about cultivation and processing. In recent years, an increasing number of farming communities are undertaking full-fledged efforts to cultivate medicinal plants. Not only farmers, but corpora-tions have introduced herb cultivation to invigorate communities. I have great hopes for these efforts.No matter how many seeds and seed-lings you may have, you will get nowhere if you do not pass down cultivation and processing know-how from one gen-eration to the next. With toki, you need a knack for such details as the timing for trimming off the flower buds, tool-making methods, depth and angle for planting seedlings, degree of soil surface moisture, overlapping of seedlings and furrow width. Proper guidance in pro-cessing techniques for different medici-nal plants is needed to produce quality crude drugs, including how to dry and peel shakuyaku roots, how to remove the core of the botan root, how to tear away the kihada bark, and so forth. Typically, with farms cultivating medicinal plants for the first time, I visit three to four times a year to advise—and still it takes about four years to harvest quality plants that can be sold to pharmaceutical com-panies.Please share your thoughts on future prospects for herb cultivation.Fukuda: International discussions are currently under way regarding tradition-al East Asian medicine. One topic con-cerns which country’s quality standards for medicinal plants should be adopted in order to determine international stan-dards. Japan differs from other coun-tries in its way of cultivating herbs and making crude drugs; thus if any other country’s standards, including those of China, were to become the international standard, it would be problematic for Ja-pan. Between China and Japan there are significant differences in the compound-ing ratios of crude drugs for a daily dose. Packets containing blended crude drugs prepared at pharmacies in China are large. Not only the dosage, but the way it is prescribed also differs from that of Japan.Kampo medicine was originally in-troduced from China, but it evolved in its own unique way in Japan. Chinese medicine, called chuiyaku, is different from Kampo. It has long been thought that illness can be cured using herbs that have been cultivated in both an en-vironment and with methods that best suit the plants themselves. Generally, Japanese crude drugs have a milder taste and aroma than those grown in China. As far as crude drugs are concerned, the natural climate and environment should be given priority, and so I am skeptical of the necessity of creating and adopting international standards. Japanese medicinal plants must be cultivated in Japan and their supply net-work should be established. For that rea-son I have been providing guidance and support to farms all over Japan on a vol-untary basis, at my own expense, in the belief that this is my self-assigned role and responsibility, having been born into the family of a long-established herbal wholesaler. I feel the greatness of successive Tosuke Morino, who pre-served various types of medicinal plants, conducted valuable research and left those plants and study results for future eras. I pray that more people like them will appear for the future of the Japanese crude drugs used for kampo medicine.Interviewed at Fukuda Shoten, April 16, 2018The harvesting of kihada barkDrying toki roots in January1. A “use first, pay later” sales system, wherein traveling medicine salesmen would provide a full medicine box at each household and visit periodically to refill it and collect mon-ey for what was used.
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