Cover Story
Our Herbs
A remedy for Pacific Islands economic ills?
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.
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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.
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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 doesn¹t 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 John¹s 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 Hawaii¹s 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. Vanuatu¹s kava sales peaked at 750 tonnes in 1998. In the same year Fiji¹s 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 it¹s 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.
