00:00:12.120Can intention be found in global supply networks? Because of this dual nature of plants that
00:00:19.120are both part of the living world and commodities, can we maybe let them lead us to find a middle
00:00:26.040way where we create the structures of reciprocity and connection that really seems like the medicine
00:00:33.900that plants invite us to imagine. Anne Arnbrecht is an anthropologist, PhD, Harvard, 1995,
00:00:43.600whose work explores the relationships between humans and the earth, most recently through her
00:00:49.740work with plants, herbal medicine, and the botanical industry. She is the director of the
00:00:55.200Sustainable Herbs Program, a program of the American Botanical Council, which she established
00:01:01.000in 2016 to help bridge the gaps between the values of herbal medicine and the reality of
00:01:07.280sourcing and producing herbs on a global scale. She is the author of The Business of Botanicals,
00:01:13.840exploring the healing promise of plant medicines in a global industry that documents her journey
00:01:19.800following herbs from seed to shelf. She is also the author of the award-winning ethnographic
00:01:26.380memoir, Thin Places, A Pilgrimage Home, and the co-producer of the documentary on traditional
00:01:34.200Western herbalism, Newman, The Healing Power of Plants. Anne was a 2017 Fulbright Nehru scholar
00:01:42.760documenting the supply chain of medicinal plants in India, and she lives with her family in central
00:01:48.960Vermont. Well, Anne, thank you so much for joining us. I am really looking forward to
00:01:58.240being transported into the plant world with you in this conversation. I love thinking, talking,
00:02:08.020being around plants as much as possible. So it always puts me in a clear space,
00:02:14.860even though there's a lot of challenges to sift through thank you so much I'm really looking
00:02:20.260forward to it as well I'm a huge fan of your show so oh well thanks well yeah I'm a huge fan
00:02:27.040of your work and everybody we have on the show it's totally my honor and um a blessing to be
00:02:35.660able to have conversations like this with people like you and just uh yeah explore the complexities
00:02:44.100and the beauty and the frustrations of how to be in right relationship with our lives at this time.
00:02:56.160And yeah, I guess just to dive right in, a deep theme that your work references is
00:03:05.720the tensions that exist within our relationships to plants. And on one hand,
00:03:12.140we have the understanding that plants are living, even spiritual entities. But on the other hand,
00:03:20.920plants are often treated as commodities or disconnected inanimate objects within supply
00:03:28.880chains. So as we begin, I'd love if you could outline these relationships and share some of
00:03:35.420the important distinctions between herbalism as a practice and the herbal industry.
00:03:42.140Sure. Maybe I can answer that by telling a little bit about my story into it.
00:03:47.800So I'm an anthropologist and did my research, research for my doctorate in northeastern Nepal, where I was looking at the impact of this conservation area on the community.
00:04:00.380And I had a lot of romantic ideas about indigenous knowledge and all of that, which I quickly discovered, you know, things are much more complex than the categories allow us to imagine they are.
00:04:12.140But when I was there, I did discover, experience this relationship that the villagers whom I came to know had with the environment where they lived.
00:04:22.160That was one of mutual respect and reciprocity.
00:04:25.600And, you know, they would make offerings to the ancestors in exchange for a good rice harvest.
00:04:31.080And there was a Tibetan llama who came down who would make offerings to keep the rain away.
00:04:38.380You know, so it was a very living, alive, meaningful relationship.
00:04:43.520And then I came home and, of course, came home to, you know, America and at the time, the 20th century and was struck by a lot of the opposite of that.
00:04:53.160And at that time, I was finishing my writing up my doctorate and I went to an herb conference and I met Rosemary Gladstar.
00:04:59.400And Rosemary has this remarkable ability to like she is a plant.
00:05:05.020She embodies the aliveness of the plants in this incredibly powerful way.
00:05:10.740And so I went to study herbal medicine with her.
00:05:13.420And as I was there, I discovered a lot in how she talked about working with plants.
00:05:18.440It was quite similar to what that sense I had experienced in Nepal about that sense
00:05:23.500of reciprocity, that we're not in control, that the environment is something living and
00:05:30.180we act and it impacts that the environment and the environment impacts us and um and to respect
00:05:38.500that and so I dove into herbal medicine I thought this is the answer to everything that's wrong
00:05:44.020and as I dove in more I discovered that to most people herbal medicine is is not that
00:05:50.860invitation into relationship with the aliveness of the world it's a product on a shelf in the
00:05:58.440grocery store and the supplement aisle. So with my husband, who's a filmmaker, we produced a
00:06:03.740documentary that we called Newman. That's Newman is a Latin word that means the animating force
00:06:10.100in all things living. And we really wanted to celebrate the values of the heart of traditional
00:06:15.100Western herbalism that I was talking about that I'd learned from Rosemary and others.
00:06:19.960And so as we were filming, doing the interviews for that film, we interviewed people in some of
00:06:24.940the companies that were really introduced to me as the ones that were doing it right.
00:06:29.500They talked about the intention, the importance of intention when you're growing the plant,
00:06:34.560harvesting the plant, making the medicine, we're interacting with your client,
00:06:40.180and that that's part of the power of the medicine. And yet, quite often, the herbs that they were
00:06:46.560using in those products were bought and sold on these global supply chains, where who knows what
00:06:52.520kind of intention was brought to every stage of that process. And so I wanted to understand,
00:06:59.120I wanted to explore that tension and started out by asking, can that intention, that relationship
00:07:05.900with the aliveness of the plant as a living being be found in supply chains that are governed by
00:07:12.360the laws of capitalism, where things are treated as commodities, which to me, commodities are like
00:07:19.820objects that are there just for our use. And we have a transactional relationship with them
00:07:25.480rather than this deeper relationship of reciprocity.
00:07:31.980Yeah. I'm thinking about your book, The Business of Botanicals, and you dedicate a chapter to,
00:07:43.820quote, the modern renaissance of herbal medicine. And so I'm thinking on the themes you bring up in
00:07:50.300that chapter and the many herbalists you talk to in writing this book. And so I would just love to
00:07:57.200spend some time discussing the particular history of how we got to where we are in this era of both
00:08:04.140herbalism and the herbal industry. The herbal medicine I came to know was through Rosemary
00:08:11.120Gladstone, I really told that story through the teachers, first Rosemary, and then others whom I
00:08:18.660encountered at herb conferences through those teachers as a way to make it specific, because
00:08:25.520otherwise, it's such a big story. And I think a lot of that, you know, that was in the 70s when
00:08:32.980there was really that rise of herbal medicine, which was around the time of, you know, the
00:08:38.940nearings and back to the land and growing our own food, making our own medicine, and all the other
00:08:46.640things that were part of that. And so Rosemary was part of a group in California that, and there
00:08:53.600were a lot of other people that were part of that. I think Rosemary's gift, and I talk about this in
00:08:59.120the chapter, is really bringing people together. The herbalists I've met tend to be quite
00:09:04.100individualistic and eclectic and, and, and like to do things their own way. And Rosemary has this
00:09:11.060remarkable capacity to see beyond the differences and remind us why everyone is connected. And so
00:09:18.920she created these conferences. And I think those conferences in the 70s, and they continue today
00:09:23.480in the 80s and 90s have been instrumental in, in what's kind of unique about herbalism in the
00:09:29.780United States, which is this larger sense of a community and a connection and a relationship to
00:09:35.380making medicine with plants. So there was that, this renaissance around the plants that was around
00:09:42.440conferences where they held hands and sang songs. And it wasn't just making medicine. It was about
00:09:46.920a sense of spirit at the heart of that. And yet then there's products. And so all those herbs
00:09:54.280have to come from somewhere. And this kind of taps into another history, which is the history
00:10:00.940of the trade of herbs, which was a quite robust trade, like in the U.S. in the late 1900s and
00:10:08.760with the eclectics. And I talk a little bit about that in the book, but not a ton. But there was a
00:10:14.520whole big trade around herbs, especially in Appalachia, that supplied the products that
00:10:21.880were made by the eclectics. And as part of that, there was highly developed people who understood
00:10:29.120the quality. And then what happened was as herbal medicine died out because pharmaceuticals came in
00:10:36.760and modern medicine, and there was the promise of being healed with a pill and around the time of
00:10:43.100penicillin and things like that, that was the answer. And herbal medicine as a business died
00:10:49.160away. In Appalachia and regions of the country, it definitely continued in homes where that's what
00:10:56.560people depended on and they didn't have access to other forms of healthcare that cost a lot of
00:11:01.680money. But the trade really died out. And with it, the sense of quality and the understanding of
00:11:07.300quality died out. And so there's the kind of medicine I studied with rosemary, which is grow
00:11:13.280your own, make your own herbal folk medicine. And then there's a kind of transaction of herbs
00:11:20.180as commodities that really feeds the supplement aisle in a lot of the grocery stores that we now
00:11:26.720know, or, you know, drugstores. Yeah. It's interesting to think that when
00:11:32.460the movement was more fringe, there was more quality control because of course,
00:11:39.380dominant culture likes us to understand the world kind of in the opposite way, that
00:11:48.100when the over-culture isn't in control, then the quality and the efficacy and the safety
00:11:55.120of products and practices are not as regulated, therefore not as trustworthy.
00:12:03.900I was super naive when I started the research for this book, and I had a lot of ideas about
00:12:09.260you know, local grow your own is better than bigger scale. And I found that it's not necessarily
00:12:14.920the case. The difference between Europe, say in the US where Europe, there's really strict
00:12:20.900regulations around quality and they have the science and the rigor of people who understand
00:12:27.660the quality of the herbs. So they're better quality products actually on the market. Whereas
00:12:34.080in the US, it's really, you have to know what you're looking for. And if you buy the cheapest
00:12:38.900thing, you're likely to get something that's not going to work. It's a complex thing of the
00:12:44.740chemical constituents of plants and the mix of intention that I keep trying to sort out.
00:12:51.820I think this is really important because it is complex. And I don't think there's a way around
00:13:00.240that. I know for us humans, we really want simple responses. And we just want to be able to say,
00:13:08.900right or wrong, good or bad, but that's not actually true. And so we're kind of doing a
00:13:15.260disservice to ourselves when we think we can find ourselves in one end of the spectrum or the other.
00:13:22.900So I want to ask you about what are we looking for, you know, as we're sifting through the
00:13:30.180complexity of trying to find medicine that's not only best for our bodies, but best for the earth
00:13:39.380and really supporting people who are creating medicine with the highest quality and clearest
00:13:49.060intentions. What do you tell people when they're in that quandary of how they begin to make better
00:13:58.800choices? So when I started, I decided I wanted to tell the stories of the people and places
00:14:05.020behind the finished products. I'm inspired by a quotation by Wendell Berry. When I heard him
00:14:10.420speak once, he was saying, we have forgotten the forest behind the wood tables that we depend on.
00:14:17.120We've forgotten the lakes that are being drained to fill our bathtubs. And not seeing the impacts
00:14:23.640of our ways of living allows us to forget the moral and ecological consequences.
00:14:28.800And so he said, change begins with an active imagination to sort of seeing beyond the products that, you know, the economy likes us to think are just severed and just appear out of nowhere.
00:14:42.720And what might telling the stories of the people and places behind these herbal products show?
00:14:49.320And the other, can intention be found in global supply networks?
00:14:52.960And so I, as I traveled around and, you know, following your point that there's no simple answers, I found that there was an exception to everything I would find there, that it was incredibly complex, you know, herbs aren't like coffee or cacao, where it's just one commodity, going through the supply networks, companies like traditional medicinals or Gaia will have like 100 to 300 different herbs that they're sourcing from all around the world.
00:15:22.460And so what do you look for in that kind of situation?
00:15:26.920And at first I thought it was a question of scale or intention.
00:15:31.100And now what I really think what I have found is it's when people can pay attention and attention as in, is this herb dried or kind of, I'm going to not dry it completely, but nobody will notice.
00:24:52.660think about redefining the sacred and the value in medicine and products. And in your book,
00:24:59.440The Business of Botanicals, you ask, quote, can the life force of a plant find its way
00:25:05.220into products manufactured according to the requirements of capital? End quote.
00:25:11.920Yeah, so I guess I want to ask you that question back to you and where you've seen that thrive and
00:25:21.780also diminish in your research? So, you know, it's interesting, like a year ago in my work,
00:25:27.400I was just getting really caught. So I run this program, the Sustainable Herbs Program, and
00:25:32.880what a lot of the focus has been really educating around best practices in sourcing and trying to
00:25:40.440get companies to share information and learn and go further. And it's very much, it's a very heady
00:25:48.380thing. You know, there's information out there. I need to understand the information and implement
00:25:53.020the action. And I was getting more and more disheartened by the work. And so I thought
00:26:00.120back to, okay, what's like the root cause or one of the root causes of all of this? And it's
00:26:05.040disconnection. It's disconnection from the earth, disconnection from each other,
00:26:10.160from the plants. I was feeling disconnected in my work. And so I began, I organized this,
00:26:17.120what I'm calling the Sustainable Earth Program Learning Lab, which was a group of us that came
00:26:22.000together with some facilitation from people from the Presencing Institute, which is this
00:26:27.480awareness-based systems change and is really trying to address these root causes of disconnection
00:26:33.220and then seeing what emerges. And so this group has been meeting for two years. And now for the
00:26:40.880last few months, we've been starting each meeting where one of the participants leads us on a
00:26:46.920on a journey to a plant and kind of takes us into that place of feeling the sense of a plant as a
00:26:56.600gift and really letting that inside that experience. And then coming back, you know,
00:27:04.760it's a short little journey, it's five minutes. And then we come back to the group and then we're
00:27:09.740talking about challenges of sourcing and those other kinds of questions. But what we're asking
00:27:16.240is does exploring those questions from this other place, this deeper place, how does that matter?
00:27:24.840And so rather than like asking in the global supply chain, is that the spirit of the plant
00:27:30.960showing up there, we're trying to like embody it ourselves and see what happens, if that makes
00:27:36.180sense. And it's made my work so much, feel so much more meaningful. And the connections with
00:27:43.020these people who are involved so much more meaningful. And so I, yeah, I don't know where
00:27:49.700it will unfold, but it feels important, like an important pathway that's kind of, to me,
00:27:59.400you know, there's so much that's wrong with the world right now. And because of this dual nature
00:28:04.340of plants that are both part of the living world and commodities, can we maybe let them lead us
00:28:12.440to find a middle way where it's not just capitalism is all wrong and anti-capitalism
00:28:19.320is all right, but some place where we create these structures of reciprocity and connection
00:28:26.260within these global networks. And I don't know, and regulatory challenges in the US make it really
00:28:33.860hard for small-scale herbalists to make it work on a larger scale. And it's what you were saying,
00:28:40.720you have to scale up, that costs more money, and things like that. But I do find that there
00:28:46.260are more conversations about coming into right relationship with the people and the plants and
00:28:52.220the planet than there were when I started this work 10 years ago. So that gives me some hope.
00:28:58.400How do you see it shifting in the last decade?
00:29:01.620So there are these huge trade shows that, you know, like, I don't know, 60,000 people,
00:29:07.360this one in Southern California that I was at a few months ago, Expo West. And part of it,
00:29:14.680you know, there's more educational content and some of that is just lip service because across
00:29:22.100the way there's this huge trade show, which is all based on growth. And so, you know,
00:29:27.940there's more questions I think that need to be asked about growth, but more questions are being
00:29:33.440asked than were before. And more conversations in different places like trade organizations
00:29:40.060and these industry-oriented conferences are diving in more deeply, sort of going beyond
00:29:49.860to saying, oh, sustainability matters because consumers want it. That's a big deal. They
00:29:54.560always talk about that. But they're going beyond that and saying, okay, what does it mean to have
00:30:00.260a transparent supply chain, which is a key to beginning to know where your herbs are from.
00:30:06.100More companies are asking that. And so this conference yesterday, we were hoping really
00:30:10.800to bring that to a larger customer base. So yeah, it's interesting. A friend who's head of a small
00:30:19.400kind of coffee alternative company said he's an herbalist and he got into this work in the industry,
00:30:26.060I don't know, 10 years ago or so. And he has said he's also feels far that there are far more
00:30:31.480conversations happening. As part of that collaborative network that I mentioned that
00:30:36.700I had started, we have a group that's come out of that that's scope three emissions.
00:30:43.680So companies have to measure their scope three emissions as part of becoming net zero. And that
00:30:49.580means where the herbs come from, they need to know how much carbon is being emitted, which is a huge,
00:30:54.860huge task for a company that's sourcing 100 to 300 herbs. And so we're trying to figure out,
00:31:00.940can we collaborate and get this data together so it's not costing each of us our own resources
00:31:10.260to spend on measurement when what was really needed is for us all to start taking action?
00:31:15.500So how can we pool our resources and get some of these data measurement companies that have sprung
00:31:21.340up now that there's this need to go net zero? Can we get them to work with us in a more creative
00:31:27.200way? Think outside the box. So that's exciting. And then another thing was this trip in Nepal
00:31:33.380that I mentioned last fall. It was with myself and then somebody from Martin Bauer, which is
00:31:40.120the biggest ingredient supplier. It's a German company. And then two brands, somebody from
00:31:45.840Pucca Herbs and somebody from East West or Yogi Tea. And this was the first time that one,
00:31:52.080an ingredient supplier had been with a brand to visit the supplier. Not the first time that's
00:31:56.740happened, that's happened, but they don't like it to happen because they're afraid that the brand
00:32:00.640will just go around the ingredient supplier and they'll lose their work. And the first time though,
00:32:05.380for these two brands who are competitors on the shelf to visit a supplier together.
00:32:10.220And they all also said that was because of the trust that had been built through these meetings that we've had at the Sustainable Herbs Program Learning Lab. And so there's these tiny, tiny little steps, but it shows that like reconnecting can help maybe create more connections.
00:32:29.700mm-hmm yeah absolutely i want to bring up another quote in your book the business of botanicals and
00:32:38.180it's quote as traditional practitioners around the world know well the process of making medicine
00:32:44.300begins long before the chopping of roots or leaves for wild collected plants it begins at
00:32:50.100the moment of harvest with cultivated plants the process starts much earlier with the decisions
00:32:55.780about where and when to plant, end quote. And I've really noticed that throughout your work,
00:33:02.100you bring up the idea of medicine as a process, not a product. And so I would just love to dive
00:33:09.000deeper into this concept and think through some of the forces that have alienated most people from
00:33:15.540the processes of medicine. Yes, that idea of process is the one thing that gives me the most
00:33:21.440hope right now, right? That if we all sort of start to continue to do what we're trying to do,
00:33:26.820we can make a difference. But to get to your question, so I started the book when I tell a
00:33:32.280story about a conference I went to when I first learned how to make a tincture, an echinacea
00:33:37.800tincture and how incredibly easy it was. And it only took like 10 minutes. And yet I had no idea
00:33:44.480that something like that was so simple because I didn't grow up in a household where, you know,
00:33:49.440we grew our food, we made our medicine, and it was so empowering. And interestingly, so later in
00:34:01.680the book, when I'm talking, when I spend time at a Ayurvedic healing center in southern India,
00:34:08.100and that the head of that center, Vajra Gama, was quite articulate about the process
00:34:14.360being more important. And for him, he was talking about that there was this crisis. You know,
00:34:21.480I was asking where are your herbs from and are they being taken care of? And I was being kind
00:34:25.900of judgmental that they weren't being. And he said, right now we have a crisis. The Ayurvedic
00:34:32.100practitioners, they just are used to buying the products off the shelf. And so they don't,
00:34:37.020they've lost that relationship with the plants that comes from growing them, harvesting them,
00:34:43.040working with them understanding the touch the feel how how the medicines are made and all of
00:34:49.860that and and without that knowledge he said they can't really understand how the plants are going
00:34:55.660to work in practice and that's what he was really working to recreate really the culture you know
00:35:03.620bringing that back and so he was trying to figure out how they could make the kashayams that's the
00:35:08.300kind of medicine in Ayurveda that he was talking about in their office so that they're participatory
00:35:14.160in that. And then I think of my own journey, you know, of following herbs through, you know,
00:35:21.040around the world that has taught me so much more than I ever would have learned from just taking
00:35:28.540a product off the shelf. And it's like healed parts of myself through like waking them up
00:35:35.140because I learn more and it's empowering.
00:35:37.440And just all these things that, you know,
00:35:40.000I think about the various crises in our time
00:35:43.860and participating helps heal so much, right?
00:35:51.060It's here on a low dog in Newman, the film,
00:35:53.640she said, you know, we've made it so difficult.
00:35:55.520Like making a tincture is easier than making a pie,
00:35:58.980but we've made it be something that's the realm of experts.
00:36:02.560yeah this common knowledge that it was so empowering to be able to make remedies or to
00:36:07.260know what to give my children in situations when they didn't need a doctor but they were
00:36:12.560uncomfortable from a cold or you know various things yeah no i definitely understand that
00:36:22.620feeling entirely and um it's interesting i'm thinking about another quote um from your book
00:36:30.680and it's, quote, the U.S. dietary supplement industry generated $42.6 billion in retail sales
00:36:38.420in 2018 with herbal dietary supplements contributing $8.84 billion to the total, end quote.
00:36:47.920And kind of going back to what you were just saying, being in this quandary of how to make
00:36:55.140good decisions and where do you go when you're starting to feel or you're somebody you love is
00:37:00.940starting to feel off you know there's just so much targeted marketing telling us what superfoods to
00:37:07.820eat what supplements to take what vitamins we need and so uh you know i'm wondering how might
00:37:14.660we see beyond this to understand what our bodies truly need i know i know it's so hard um and you
00:37:24.160go to this trade show and it's all about the targeted marketing. I wanted to just respond
00:37:29.280to the first part of what you were saying for a sec. You know, years ago, a mentor of mine,
00:37:33.600Danella Meadows, she talked about growth and she said, you know, we need to be asking growth of
00:37:38.920what, at what cost, paid for by whom, and paid when. And that made me think more about like,
00:37:47.140okay, so growth, we're talking about plants. So plants are growing and that's a beautiful kind
00:37:52.180of growth, right? We all love the growth of the earth and living things. And so what about just
00:37:58.080reframing or putting growth in context of growing like Solotana, growing the peace and relaxation
00:38:08.120on the women's faces who come to her job, growing empathy and connection, and growing healthy soils.
00:38:19.680So if a company, you know, to have conversations that are broadening, not just your bottom line, but growing the impact, positive impact on the ecosystem.
00:38:30.480So I guess that's my hope, you know, back to changes.
00:38:34.760My hope is that if enough of us talk about that, we can broaden beyond just this narrow circle of the product to the ecosystem and the impact on that product.
00:38:48.820And the other part of your question about targeted marketing and what to look for, you know, a lot of people, especially early on, would say, what company should I buy from? And it gets back to that question you were asking about process.
00:39:03.560When I studied herbal medicine, people would say, buy from this company, this company,
00:39:26.760And so I resist when people ask me what companies to buy from, and rather, like, how can we
00:39:32.200get tools you know we're all busy and we don't have time to ask questions and things like that
00:39:36.360but to start with like one thing to learn a little bit more so we understand why we say
00:39:44.620buy herbs from this company and and then we're empowered by that and the process
00:39:50.000helps us be stronger more resilient which is what medicine to do right it's healing us
00:39:56.780mm-hmm yeah yeah it's hard to follow our intuition and the marketing and the branding
00:40:07.120and the bottles and the fonts and it's hard you know it's um I know for myself that I
00:40:14.620don't want to be a mindless consumer but then I think sometimes my desire for wanting to buy
00:40:25.620tricks some part of myself and saying, Oh, but that's a good thing. You know, I can buy this
00:40:32.400product because it's plants and just, it really gets me. I'm definitely one of the people that
00:40:38.460the marketing works on, but luckily I've had so many great conversations with Rosemary and yourself
00:40:45.520and others that when that desire comes up, I have a lot of other curiosities and questions that help
00:40:54.640me refine that desire to make better choices and to reconnect to my body and reconnect to
00:41:02.100the realities of what I'm consuming and the processes and, you know, everything we've
00:41:08.880talked about. And, you know, asking myself, what does true health or what could true health
00:41:14.660even look like? And you wrote an essay called Systems Change in the Herb Industry for the
00:41:21.580sustainable herbs program and in it there's a quote where you write quote to me the ultimate
00:41:28.360irony and not a good one is that we have systems of medicines herbal and other based on the premise
00:41:34.580that you can poison parts of the system the water the soil the air humans and non-humans in some
00:41:41.860places in order to produce plants used to create wellness for other people in other places end
00:41:48.820quote. Yeah, so I feel like we touched on elements of this, but I just want to ask how can we better
00:41:58.160embody the reality that our health is complexly intertwined with and dependent upon the health
00:42:05.600of our communities, both local and global, which is the soil, the water, and the earth, etc. as a
00:42:13.260whole. I know, right? I mean, to me, that's just shocking. And just at this conference yesterday,
00:42:19.840there were several speakers who were referring to some recent research showing the ways insecticides,
00:42:26.320herbicides, pesticides impact the microbiome and make us more susceptible to disease that in turn,
00:42:33.380some of us who have those diseases are going to turn to herbs to heal. And that gets back to
00:42:41.260this fundamental disconnection. And, you know, I don't know. So how I think about that personally
00:42:54.120is what can I do in the work that I'm doing to reconnect, reconnect, reconnect, to see that
00:43:02.400what we do to the earth, we do to ourselves. And we know this information, and yet it's so hard
00:43:09.640to shift. I think part of it goes back to what you were saying about price. And I know price
00:43:16.600is challenging and has all sorts of economic impacts. But I think those of us who can afford
00:43:25.020to pay organic, there's a responsibility to do that because it's not just about our health,
00:43:31.160it's about the world we are bringing into being, the world we're supporting.
00:43:35.800No, I hear you that we all have specific responsibilities due to our positionality in the world. And what we buy impacts so many people and places and more than human kin than we can even imagine.
00:43:57.740and each of those decisions that we make impact a number of other decisions and
00:44:05.360yeah it's um just the reality and i appreciate you bringing that up there's also i think we can
00:44:13.500use less um you know like back to the question of quality of the herbs you know what you were
00:44:19.620talking about they're going to work but they're going to have the constituents in them that means
00:44:23.060they're actually going to work and they're because people have taken care and paid attention along
00:44:27.600the way, as we've been talking about. And so you don't need as much. I mean, you know, herbal
00:44:32.400products from these companies are expensive. And I totally see that. And that's a challenge for
00:44:39.540those companies. And for all of us, I don't know that there's a simple answer to that, because they
00:44:44.920cost more, you know, and good quality food costs more. So I guess that gets back to as much as we
00:44:51.600can all learn to grow what we can grow ourselves you know in a pot on a porch in a garden you know
00:44:59.740the simple herbs and then use those and make those make teas ourselves and depend less on
00:45:07.580the products that are on the shelves and only use those when we really need them it's there's not
00:45:43.460I think we have talked about how to actually get good, effective botanicals.
00:46:11.080and there's so much there about the relationships and doing our research. Yeah, it also just
00:46:18.520reminds me of this question from your book where you ask, quote, is it possible to acknowledge
00:46:23.600those past wrongs in a way that doesn't simply recreate them? Can we create relationships in
00:46:29.480which trade actually can be beneficial to all involved, not just because a company claims it
00:46:34.940to be end quote so i just want to kind of circle back to something we've already touched on but if
00:46:41.720there's anything else to add to when we are going out because we do need something specific that we
00:46:49.660can't grow or our neighbors can't grow yeah we could go into the store we look on the shelf and
00:46:55.080there might be the marketing that says all the things we want to hear but are there deeper ways
00:47:01.000of knowing? I like that. Are there deeper ways of knowing? Because my answer, as you were asking,
00:47:06.940well, a way that matters is certifications. Certified organic matters, but then there's
00:47:14.660this certification for wild harvested plants, which is fair wild. There are not many companies
00:47:20.180that are doing it because there's not many customers asking for it, but traditional
00:47:26.380Medicinals and PACA have been real leaders in getting that certification going. And that's
00:47:31.520important because it's paying attention to how the ecosystem from which the plants are harvested,
00:47:38.780and it's a fair certification. So there's a premium fund built into it and a higher price.
00:47:47.480You know, it's not huge higher prices, but it's something. And it's a work in progress. And all
00:47:52.720of these certifications, they say their process is of a continuous improvement. But by supporting
00:47:58.520companies that are certified, you're supporting that effort to really invest in the social and
00:48:05.760environmental ecosystem and take better care, because they have to go through rigorous auditing
00:48:11.320processes. And of course, you know, there's companies that cheat in producer group, you know,
00:48:16.500there's challenges are not perfect. But in an imperfect world, they're a good place to start.
00:48:22.720You know, there's only like 8% to 13% of the herbs are FAIR certified in the world.
00:48:30.320And one of the biggest challenges to the long-term supply of herbs and herbal products is migration to urban areas and younger generations who don't want to do the work because it's really hard work and because they don't get paid enough.
00:48:42.880And so FAIR certifications are a step toward addressing those socioeconomic challenges.
00:48:52.720And so I think looking for those certifications is really kind of that means that companies doing more than just putting a fancy marketing on their label and really doing the work because it's work for these companies.
00:49:03.680And B certification, B Corp, is another thing because it's requiring companies to really pay attention to more than their bottom line.
00:49:12.800So those certifications are indicators, but that's not the deeper knowing you're talking about.
00:49:17.160the deeper knowing is, you know, I, the companies I buy from now, they're people I know. And so I
00:49:23.580really appreciate and trust that they're paying attention. And, and the people who I know in the
00:49:30.420industry, like who work where I work at American Botanical Council, they don't know how to answer
00:49:34.840this question either. And that's what they say. It's the people they know. So it goes back to
00:49:39.200the point about relationships, but that doesn't help you on the grocery store. So.
00:49:43.600Well, Anne, I truly appreciate that response and all the responses you've given. It's been
00:49:52.280a conversation I think about a lot in my own head and talk with people. And we've had bits
00:50:01.100and pieces of these topics on other episodes, but never been able to dive in so fully. And so I
00:50:10.080really appreciate this and all of your work and research and dedication to these topics.
00:50:16.640So thank you so much for your time and your care. I wondered if I could share one more thing. Oh,
00:50:22.880I was actually going to ask you if there's any last thoughts you wanted to share. So that's
00:50:27.540perfect timing. Okay. So, you know, and this relates to these questions you've asked about
00:50:33.820growth and what to look for. And when we were in Poland, we visited, so one was a processing
00:50:42.180facility, which was for selling herbs to the global supply networks. And the other was this
00:50:47.120place called Dari Naturi. And it was started by a man who had grown up as a wild collector
00:50:52.800and would take herbs into Warsaw to sell them. And over time, he turned it into a collection
00:51:01.980center, and then a factory where they would process herbs into tea. And so the factory was
00:51:07.660there. And then he wanted also, he cared a lot about traditional architecture. And so he had
00:51:14.300the traditional buildings in that area were being torn down. And so he would buy the wood
00:51:19.200and bring it and he rebuilt a number of these traditional Polish buildings. And so that's on
00:51:25.000the same part of land, part of the land. And then he built this huge, this huge botanical garden.
00:51:31.980which is just for the species themselves. Part of the land is being used to grow the herbs that
00:51:37.620aren't wild collected and are used in the factory. The other is this botanical garden with all the
00:51:42.560species, you know, with signs and educational material. And then the building was turned into
00:51:48.500this hotel that was filled with these young Polish families when we were there. And then
00:51:53.880there was an herbal medicine educational component. And I thought that's, you know,
00:51:58.300When you think of like medicine of place, that's what that felt like, that those connections were happening.
00:52:05.500It wasn't. And that those that weaving together was really, to me, the model where I think we should all aspire to.
00:52:17.480And it's hard to imagine that in the U.S., you know, there are herb schools, but they're usually separate from factories and everything is comes from different places.
00:52:27.720but that place in Poland, and then there was one I visited in Hungary
00:52:32.480that was also a smaller scale, but connecting the growing
00:52:35.880with the processing, with the education.
00:52:39.320And then the center in South India, I mentioned, that's their vision.
00:52:42.800They're not there yet, but just to reconnect the plants
00:52:46.500with the people that are using the plants,
00:52:48.720with the education about how to use them.
00:52:50.760And it really seems like the medicine that plants invite us to imagine and create.
00:53:01.860Beautiful. Well, thanks for ending with that, Anne. It's a really special vision to keep