Our Herbs, A remedy for Pacific Islands economic ills?

By Robert Keith-Reid


There's more than meets the eye, not to mention hits the nose,
in a steaming cup of aromatic herbal tea. The world has an
estimated annual US$21,000 million taste for tea made of
everything but tea; for herbal medicines concocted from a choice
of bits and pieces of fruit, bark, leaves, roots and seeds from
hundreds of different plants, trees and bushes; and for
"essential" oils extracted in the name of aromatherapy treatment
with such oils as that from the ylang-ylang plant.

Rubbed into the chest, ylang-ylang is said to sedate, restore,
rest and energise the flagging frames of its recipients. These
wonder plant oils are used also in perfumes, pharmaceuticals
and food flavouring.

Then there are nutraceuticals, which are defined as
non-prescription health products that assist medical conditions
that are not precisely identified. These have been used in India,
Japan, and China for centuries. And also in the Pacific Islands,
where in such regions as the rainforests of Melanesia, the
practice of traditional herbal medicine draw on the knowledge
and practical experience with the qualities of numerous plant
specimens.

In Samoa, there is excitement about a drug extracted from the
bark of a tree that appears to have significant potential for
fighting the AIDS virus. Herb end-products appear as tablets and
capsules, herbal teas, creams, balms and lotions, essential oil
and fragrances, juices, drinks, and health foods.
Big business: the many products produced from our local herbs.

Europeans spend about US$8,500 million annually on
herb-based products, the Japanese US$5400 million, and the
Americans US$5000 million. Apart for the respectable sales
scored in recent years with exports of kava and noni juice, the
Pacific has a share of the world herb market so miniscule that it
is barely detectable.

French Polynesia and Tonga export small amounts of vanilla. In
Fiji, pioneers like Dr Ronald Gatty battle to develop markets for
vanilla, pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, turmeric and ginger,
which he says, potentially are ideal and lucrative crops for
production by families at village and smallholder levels.

But now kava, important to Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, is
under a cloud for what the producers say is unsubstantiated
claims by German regulatory agencies that it could cause fatal
liver damage.

And some knowledgeable people suspect that the new
international market for noni, the fruit of Morinda Citrifolia, a tree
which grows widely in the Pacific Islands, and said to have near
miraculous curative qualities for practically any complaint, is
about to crash as quickly as it grew.

In Port Vila in February, under the auspices of the European
Union's Centre for the Development of Enterprise and the
Commonwealth Secretariat, Pacific Islanders hoping to carve a
serious niche for themselves in the global herb trade gathered
for a two-day dissection and analysis of it.

They heard the pronouncements of technical and marketing
experts from Europe, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

A dismaying aspect of some of these briefs was the description
of the barrier of regulations, rules and bureaucracy awaiting
confrontation with herb producers hoping to break into the
European and United States markets.

Different markets have different attitudes in regulating their
admission of herb products. Australia treats noni as a food item
and does not permit the sale of noni pills. The United States
classes it as a dietary supplement and doesn?t object to noni
capsules. No product can be sold in Europe as natural food if
the relevant authority has not certified it.

In Europe where Germany consumes 46 percent of herbal
products, followed by France 27 percent, and Britain seven
percent, top selling herb products are bilberry, Chamomile,
Echinacea, Ginkgo, Ginseng, hawthorn, horse chestnut, ivy,
kava, milk thistle, palmetto, St John?s wort, and valerian.

Typical customers are aged between 30 to 40, well educated
and live in towns; 40% try any herbal product at least once a year,
and 50 percent are regular users.

The European market of 375 million people grew at 8-10 percent
annually until 1998, when growth flattened out because of a glut
of products on offer. It is expected to remain sluggish for several
years.

United States sales of herbal supplements reached US$2000
million in 1997, double the amount four years earlier.

Herb end-products appear as tablets and capsules, herbal teas
and tisanes (herbal drink infusions), creams, balms and lotions;
essential oils and fragrances, juices, drinks, health foods Dr
Arthur Whistler, a University of Hawaii authority on Pacific Islands
medicinal plants, told the Port Vila meeting that 90 percent of
Hawaii?s native plants grew nowhere else in the world.

About 33 percent of Samoa's plants are endemic to it, but only
two percent of Tonga's.

Fiji has 2000 native plant species, Papua New Guinea 15,000,
and Samoa 550. The further out into the Pacific countries are the
fewer plant species they have, and these are less likely to
contain active chemical substances that give some plants their
medicinal properties.

After kava and noni, the lead Pacific Islands herb products, all
produced in small quantities, are wild ginger, coconut, gardenia,
red algae, and hibiscus.

Sales of Pacific Islands-supplied kava in the United States
reached US$53 million in 2000, and ranked seventh in herbal
supplements, according to the Nutrition Business Journal of San
Diego. In Europe, kava imports grew from 1300 tones in 1996 to
2300 tons in 1999, and then dropped to 1800 in 2000 due to
oversupply. In 2001 consumption slumped because of bad
publicity about the alleged damage to the livers of kava users.

Kava prices rose from US$6 per kilograme in Europe in 1996 to
US$33-US$35 in 1998-99, and then fell to US$11 to US$14 per
kilogramme. Vanuatu?s kava sales peaked at 750 tonnes in
1998. In the same year Fiji?s exports peaked at 1192 tonnes.

Noni, the Polynesian name for the fruit of Morinda Citrifolia,
originated, it is said in Polynesia. But it grows in the Caribbean
region and South America. As a drink, it contains active
substances for which numerous cures are claimed, but which
had not been scientifically proved. As a fermented juice it is
drunk daily in many places in the Pacific as a traditional
prophylactic.

French Polynesia exported about 2800 tons of noni fruit in 2000
and has 2000 hectares under cultivation, according to Dr
Charles Garnier, Director of Agriculture and Research. Fresh
noni fruit fetches 50 to 60 cents a kilogramme; it sells in the
United States for US$10-US$12 for a 500 mls (millilitres) bottle.
In Europe, the demand for noni lies mainly in Germany, Spain
and Italy. Consumption just begun. Production capacity already
exceeds market needs and noni is not easy to sell, the Port Vila
meeting heard.

Vanilla, a climbing vine of orchid family, has to be hand
pollinated, with its beans harvested before ripening. It is used for
manufacturing extracts, oleoresins and alcoholic tinctures and
flavour for ice cream, cakes, chocolate, sweets, liquors, soft
drinks, tobacco and perfumes. Some are produced in Tonga,
Vanuatu, Samoa, Fiji, and French Polynesia, where the Tahitian
variety, is preferred by the perfumery business. Other producers
are Madagascar, Indonesia, Mexico, the West Indies and some
Indian Ocean Islands. French Polynesia with Java and
Madagascar are considered to produce the best quality vanilla.
The world market is for 2000 to 2400 tons a year, with
Madagascar supplying 1000 to 1200 tons, and Indonesia 700 to
800 tons.

Vanilla prices have jumped considerably in the past three years
to US$150-US$175 per kilogramme due to the influence of bad
weather and heavy speculation. But it?s now slowly declining to
US$95-US$120. The main buyers are Coca-Cola, Germany,
France, Switzerland, Britain, and Italy. But there is competition
from low cost artificial flavouring substitutes. World consumption
is growing at three percent in Europe and seven percent in the
United States.

Natural beans are preferred for natural products, and the
demand is for new foods with new flavours and aromas, and for
gourmet ice cream. However, unless there is legislation to curb
the use of artificial flavours, a Commonwealth Secretariat's
assessment of the market comments that "there is no market
opportunity of interest for new suppliers of low quality cured
vanilla."

Ginkgo tops the list of world herb sales with a market of US$250
million followed by St John's wort at US$170 million.

Essential oils, extracted from plants, can be big earners. But
producers should be prepared to deal with numerous regulatory
obstacles. French Polynesia and New Caledonia have
laboratories that engage in the production of oils, of which more
than 3000 are known, but only 500 sold commercially.

Oil of the clove leaf is used in toothpaste, and oil of the clove bud
is used for the treatment of toothache. Oil of citrus seeds is used
in beverages; rosemary oil is a sedative. Ancient methods of
production, usually by distillation, expression and solvent
extraction, cannot be relied on to provide the consistent levels of
quality demanded by buyers.