The qualification rate of national sampling of traditional Chinese medicine and Chinese herbal decoction pieces has increased from 64% to 96%

There are records of Shen Nong tasting hundreds of herbs and Bian Que reviving the dead in ancient times. Today, Tu Youyou has won the National Science and Technology Award and the Nobel Prize in Medicine for her use of artemisinin. Traditional Chinese medicine has been passed on and developed for thousands of years. It has written a new chapter in the fight against SARS and the COVID-19, and has played an important role in ensuring people's health and life safety.

The qualification rate of national sampling of traditional Chinese medicine and Chinese herbal decoction pieces has increased from 64% to 96%

There are records of Shen Nong tasting hundreds of herbs and Bian Que reviving the dead in ancient times. Today, Tu Youyou has won the National Science and Technology Award and the Nobel Prize in Medicine for her use of artemisinin. Traditional Chinese medicine has been passed on and developed for thousands of years. It has written a new chapter in the fight against SARS and the COVID-19, and has played an important role in ensuring people's health and life safety.

In the face of unprecedented changes and challenges, how will traditional Chinese medicine be passed down and innovated? Good medicinal herbs make good medicine. High quality medicinal herbs have become the key to the golden development of the traditional Chinese medicine industry.

There are ups and downs, and the overall quality of traditional Chinese medicine is improving

Has the quality of traditional Chinese medicine decreased? In response to a reporter's question, Guo Lanping, director of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Resource Center at the Chinese Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, who has long been committed to the research of ecological cultivation of Chinese medicinal materials, gave the answer: "Overall, it is improving, with both increases and decreases

'Rising' means a significant increase in the pass rate. From 2013 to 2020, in the annual sampling of 53720 batches of Chinese medicinal materials and herbal decoction pieces in various provinces across the country, the pass rate of sampling increased from 64% to 96%. The core issue of the quality of Chinese medicinal materials is the quality of authenticity. In the past, there were many counterfeit Chinese medicinal materials in the production area and market, but now they are very rare, "said Guo Lanping.

'Reduction' refers to insufficient medicinal properties. Chinese medicinal materials have unique quality and growth characteristics. Unlike traditional agricultural crops that mainly pursue yield, people attach more importance to the quality of Chinese medicinal materials. Guo Lanping said that the insufficient medicinal properties are directly related to the planting methods of Chinese medicinal materials. The quality of Chinese medicinal materials is usually determined by the secondary metabolites contained in them. The secondary metabolites of plants are closely related to the age and growth environment of medicinal materials. Traditional Chinese medicine pursues high-quality and suitable production. The first half is about increasing yield, while the second half accumulates quality and medicinal properties, which takes time. If Chinese medicinal herb growers aim for yield and lack awareness of plant protection and environmental protection, and misuse pesticides and apply fertilizers improperly during the planting process, it will lead to more problems with the effective ingredients and side effects of medicinal herbs, seriously affecting the quality and efficacy of drugs.

The changes in growth environment are also affecting the quality of traditional Chinese medicinal materials. Before the 1990s, most Chinese medicinal herbs were planted in barren slopes and fields, with less than 1% of them being grown in large fields. With the gradual increase in demand, modernization of traditional Chinese medicine began in the 1990s, and the original planting mode changed. The main reason for the decline in the quality of traditional Chinese medicine is to move the planting of Chinese medicinal materials from barren slopes and forests to large fields, and to simply copy the planting mode of large fields, "said Guo Lanping.

The cultivation of traditional Chinese medicine faces dual challenges in terms of quality and cost

While paying attention to the issue of traditional Chinese medicine cultivation, the economic accounts behind it cannot be ignored.

On the demand side, the transaction volume of the domestic traditional Chinese medicine market reached 166.5 billion yuan in 2020, with an average annual growth rate of 8.63% over the past decade. Since the 1990s, with the increase in market demand, a large number of traditional Chinese medicinal materials have gradually moved from wild to cultivated. Many growers have imitated the chemical agriculture model and used a large amount of fertilizers, pesticides, plant expanders, etc. in production to achieve the goal of continuously increasing production, "Guo Lanping recalled.

On the planting side, "quality management and cost control are the two basic elements that affect the healthy and sustainable development of the traditional Chinese medicine planting industry. Without quality assurance, the industry cannot move forward, but without good cost control, the industry will be unsustainable," said Yang Chengjin, the director of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Resources Division of Yunnan Baiyao Group.

He used Sanqi as an example to explain, "A seed of Sanqi can be propagated for one year to become a seedling, and then transplanted and planted for another two years to become a medicinal herb. Continuous cropping is not allowed, and Sanqi cannot be planted on land that has been planted for decades. Therefore, after harvesting medicinal herbs, it is necessary to search for land that has not been planted with Sanqi before new planting can be carried out