OLDS, Alta. – Herbal medicine is experiencing a renaissance as a new generation discovers the healing power of plants.
For farmers, growing herbs can be lucrative if they educate themselves before growing.
British Columbia’s provincial horticulturalist Al Oliver said one of the main problems he sees in B.C. is that people mistakenly identify plants or use the same name for several different plants.
Conrad Richter of Richter Herbs in Ontario has seen the same problem where people buy seeds and produce a plant with no medicinal value.
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“Make sure you have the right one before you plant a whole bunch,” Oliver said.
In B.C., four plants are called snake root but only one of them has value as a medicinal plant.
Oliver and other plant specialists were part of a recent two-day seminar on medicinal and aromatic plants at Olds College.
Grow weeds by mistake
When people decide to grow these plants they should be sure the plant isn’t a noxious weed. In some cases a permit is required to grow certain plants.
“Almost all of our noxious weeds in B.C. have been introduced,” said Oliver. If someone decides to grow a plant like milk thistle, neighboring farmland would be jeopardized because it grows quickly and spreads many seeds in a wide radius if it’s not controlled.
One option is wildcrafting – nurturing and harvesting plants in their natural environment. If not done carefully however, people could endanger the species so it’s recommended they stay with cultivation on their farms.
Farmers also need to get in touch with the federal health and welfare department and check the government’s restricted list. Some plants are ruled toxic and can’t be sold.
An area of necessary research is genetic selection and investigations into how these plants perform.
Richter Herbs supplies seeds for the international herb industry and has recently started genetic selection but found few people know what properties they want. People don’t know what to breed for and valuable healing properties could be sacrificed with overzealous selection for the wrong qualities, said Richter.
