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A N ew P roduction M odel of T raditional Chinese M edicin al H erbs- E stablish the S upply C hain in Taiwan

A N ew P roduction M odel of T raditional Chinese M edicin al H erbs- E stablish the S upply C hain in Taiwan

     Taiwan has entered an aging society and the percentage of the population of seniors aged 65 or above is going to grow to 14% of the entire population. Most of them care much about how to keep in good health, which causes the vigorous development of traditional Chinese medicinal industry.

     In Taiwan, almost all of traditional Chinese medicin al herbs are imported from China. In 2012, according to data from the Customs Administration in Taiwan , Taiwan imported about 15,000 tones of Chinese medicin al herbs and 65.9% were from China. However, traditional Chinese medicinal herbs are threatened by overexploitation, habitat destruction and lack of proper cultivation practices i n recent years, so it becomes not easy to get materials for producing traditional Chinese medicin e , not to mention the quality control of products. All above-mentioned reasons resulted in severe effects on safety of traditional Chinese medicine.

     In order to solve the problem of lack of traditional Chinese medicin al herbs, Taiwan Seed Improvement and Propagation Station (TSIPS) and a local pharmaceutical company co-produce young plants of medicinal Dendrobium. The cooperative model of production is combined with plant tissue culture, greenhouse cultivation and pharmaceutical science. The production process is divided into three stages. T he first stage is mass propagation of medicinal Dendrobium tissue culture seedlings in vitro by TSIPS ; the second stage is for the pharmaceutical company and the farmers to culture medicinal Dendrobium as pharmaceutical raw materials in greenhouse ; the last stage is to complete the concentrated herbal extracts production by the pharmaceutical company.

     TSIPS expects this supply chain can solve the re source - lacking problem of some traditional Chinese medicin al herbs and increase agricultural demand and farmers' income. In addition, the entire production process of traditional Chinese medicin al herbs is executed in our country . A ll the products must pass rigorous medicin al herbs identification and quality checks. Meanwhile , by doing so traditional Chinese medicin al herbs production will be better in stability, security and quality, which will also enhance confidence in the product, as well as the competitiveness of traditional Chinese medicine industry in the global market.

     In recent years, TSIPS has constantly worked to develop mass micropropagation in several medicinal herbs, such as medicinal Dendrobium, Rehmannia glutinosa, Curcuma longa, Vitis thunbergii var.taiwaniana , Dioscorea opposita, Salvia miltiorrhiza, Uncaria hirsuta, etc. In the future, they will put more efforts to seek cooperation opportunities with pharmaceutical companies and farmers, hoping to enhance traditional Chinese medicinal industry to a higher level!