Sea level and global temperatures will continue to rise, influencing business and trade in profound and challenging ways. At the American Herbal Products Association (AHPA)’s 10th Botanical Congress, titled “Botanicals & Planet Earth,” several industry experts offered unique case studies on how the environment is impacting herb and botanical supplies, along with strategies to cope and become more resilient in the years ahead.

“We’re seeing long hot and cold spells completely out of season,” said Rachel Doty, verification and supply chain manager of Meridian Trading. “We’re seeing storms during dry seasons, and we’re seeing droughts during the rainy season. The agricultural patterns we’re used to are no longer reliable. If farmers are not anything else, they’re resilient, but they also rely on practices that have been successful for generations. This unpredictability will be very detrimental to our crops. Weather patterns are breaking down, and that’s leading to less quality and consistency in our botanicals.”

“We have very little hard scientific data to work with,” said Jon von Enden, head of sustainability and supply chains for Martin Bauer. “These weather disruptions are too fast to track and are happening all over the place in different ways. It’s the local communities who better understand what is happening, where it’s happening, and often, what can be done.”

Even in ideal conditions, there are unique challenges in cultivating or harvesting specialty herbs and botanicals compared to standard food crops. Compared to subsidized agricultural commodities, these crops haven’t benefited from decades of government funding, large-scale research and genetics, and other factors to maximize growth potential, said Doty.

Rather, these products can only grow to contain the bioactive ingredients for which they’re valued in very specific and sometimes remote locations due to specific weather and soil conditions. And it’s not just the plants that are facing climate-related risks, but also the communities across developing nations that harvest and cultivate them for their livelihoods.

Case Studies ...

Vanuatu
Communities on small-island nations are especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

For example, in the Oceania region, Vanuatu is known as a source of kava, as well as tamanu oil from Calophyllum inophyllum, which is often used in skin care. In early 2020, this nation of about 80 islands was devastated by Cyclone Harold, the second category 5 storm to hit Vanuatu in 5 years.

“Our sourcing regions were flooded with seawater, which destroyed village gardens and drinking water,” said Cindy Angerhofer, executive director of botanical research for Aveda. “The borders there were temporarily closed, which meant no more organic certification for our Tamanu products, before they just opened again.”

To help recover after the storms, Aveda made three grants to support sourcing communities by working with the Global Greengrants fund as well as local non-governmental organizations (NGOs). “It wasn’t about saving the plants as much as it was about working with communities that had been impacted,” Angerhofer said.

Coconut
The coconut industry in the Philippines has also been experiencing some notable challenges to survive without creating further ecological problems, Angerhofer said. “Coconut oil is both an active and a commodity ingredient depending on where it is used. Sixty-one million tons of coconut oil were produced globally in 2020, mostly in the Asia-Pacific region.”

“We joined Action for Sustainable Derivatives then, as while there were no significant gaps in obtaining coconut raw material the risk seemed very likely,” she continued. In the Philippines in particular, extreme weather events were affecting the main production areas for coconut at an outsized risk compared to other crops. Because of rising tides, producers are forced to expand inland to biodiverse areas, which many fear will destroy both rare and endemic ecosystems in the region.

Additionally, “most palm trees in the Pacific were planted after World War II, and are now around 60 years old and much less productive.” Angerhofer said. “Harvesters today don’t have good knowledge of agricultural practices or the resources they need to plant new trees.”

Valerian
Nate Brennan, purchasing and sales manager at Pacific Botanicals, said his company has been facing challenges due to early-onset summer weather, especially with its 150-acre valerian farm in southern Oregon. According to Brennan, yields for the farm have declined by about 800 pounds of dried raw material consecutively between 2018 and 2020.

“We grow a lot of valerian root, and over the past few years, summer heat has been coming about a month earlier, roughly. Our valerian plants aren’t able to go through the proper cycles to establish their roots and growth. In 2021, we experienced 25 straight days of 95-degree-plus heat which maxed out at 116 degrees last year, which was record-breaking. While we had a pretty good spring this year, things are becoming abnormal on the whole,” he said.

Meanwhile, demand for herbs is growing, and with limited crop, prices will rise, Brennan continued. “With these crops, you can’t just plant more if you’re having a bad year; there’s a limited window to put crops in the ground,” Brennan noted. “More of our land needs to be devoted to reach necessary volumes so less of our land is out of rotation, leading to poor soil health. There’s also a loss of morale among farmers. It’s difficult to find outside sources from our approved vendors. Our customers also expect product to be of U.S. origin, and if grown outside of the U.S., valerian has a different flavor and smell profile that they don’t want. Also, using these outside vendors creates opportunities for adulterants to enter the marketplace.”

Chamomile
Diversification is one immediate approach that has been met with success, Doty said, but challenges still persist. Meridian Trading sources its chamomile both from Mexico and Egypt, but both regions have been affected substantially by adverse weather conditions and there is no clear solution.

In Mexico, chamomile farmers are contending with less rain in the early season, when it is needed to establish crops, and more rain in the post-harvest periods when they are trying to sun-dry the plant.

“Field-drying time has to be extended, because the plants are getting rained on while we’re trying to dry them out, which is very bad from both a microbiological standpoint and when it comes to the impact on flavor. Mexican chamomile is treasured for its sweet floral flavors, but now we’re getting material that tastes more earthy, and the pollen is becoming darker, which takes away from the golden color chamomile tea is known for.”

Meanwhile, in Egypt, chamomile famers are experiencing unprecedented hot spells during their cool season. This has led to stunted plants, and declines in yield by as much as 40% from average, as the weather trends toward more extreme heat in the growing season.

In Mexico, at least, irrigation makes it easier for farmers to harvest chamomile by hand. However, dealing with drying challenges in Mexico is no easy task, as farmers there do all work by hand and chamomile is not a highly-profitable crop. Mechanical drying, therefore, is not fiscally realistic.

“Good crop cycles are now interspersed with highly challenging years,” said Doty. “There is a need to be flexible and maintain support for farmers, and try to understand as deeply as possible what will impact the products and agriculture.”

Lemon verbena
Keeping an open ear to the issues voiced by local farming communities has been central to Martin Bauer’s strategy amid climate-related challenges, von Enden said.

“We source many, many products from a variety of smallholder farms and wild collectors,” von Enden said. “We often take our customers directly to the fields, so that they can listen to what the farmers have to say and work out solutions with them directly.

“In Paraguay, for instance, lemon verbena literally burned in the dry heat. So, the farmers there planted corn in its place because they couldn’t afford to plant lemon verbena anymore,” von Enden said. “The soil structure was getting destroyed by hard rainfalls and the following heat. You have to understand and work with a farmer and their strategy to maintain their livelihood if your crop of choice can’t be grown.”

These weather patterns were also linked to outbursts of pests and diseases, which effected the lemon verbena crop. Further, many solutions like irrigation and mechanical processing that could help protect the raw material are too expensive for small-scale farmers in these regions.

Developing an ‘Action Toolbox’
Industry collaboration may be vital to sector-wide climate resiliency, von Enden said. An industry collaborative similar to coffee & climate (c&c) may be key. The c&c initiative develops and implements coping strategies to help smallholders adapt to climate change and to increase the climate resilience of entire coffee landscapes.

“Industry players put in funding, and joined with public organizations in order to fund a climate action toolbox,” von Enden said. “We went into the fields testing practices, evaluated them, and gave the results to the entire industry so everyone can make use of the best practices. Climate change is a sector-wide problem, and we shouldn’t look at it as an area of competition. We need to put our intelligence together.”