Ann Armbrecht, an anthropologist, is the director of the American Botanical Council’s Sustainable Herbs Program. She is the author of The Business of Botanicals: Exploring the Healing Promise of Plant Medicines in a Global Industry which documents her journey following herbs from seed to shelf. She is also the co-producer of the documentary Numen: The Nature of Plants and the author of the award-winning ethnographic memoir Thin Places: A Pilgrimage Home, based on her research in Nepal.

From Ann

“As a nation we are struggling with a profound lack of imagination. We don’t see the forests being cut down to build our homes, the lakes being drained as we fill our tub. We live on the far side of a broken connection. Not seeing the people and places on the other side – not seeing the moral and ecological consequences of producing these commodities – simply makes them easier to buy.”
— Wendell Berry

Healing this broken connection, Berry concluded, begins with seeing beyond what the market wants us to see.

I began the Sustainable Herbs Program to follow herbs through the supply chain, to make visible the people and places behind the finished products because I believe that knowing those stories, as Berry points out, is the first step toward being more responsible for the moral and ecological consequences of our choices.

In this conversation, I explore the ways herbal medicines offer an invitation to live in a deeper relationship with the world around us. I talk about my work with the Sustainable Herbs Program, how we are sharing stories and resources to help inspire more sustainable and regenerative practices in the industry as a whole.

But I am also interested in much broader questions about our role as citizens of the world and how, through our choices about the commodities we buy, we impact that world. Plants are alive and yet they are also commodities bought and sold on a global market governed by the laws of capital. Is it possible to buy herbal medicines produced with these plants in ways that honor and respect that aliveness? What might exploring stories about efforts to responsibly source and produce herbal products show us about living more lightly on the earth? What insights do they offer for how to treat each other, the earth, and ourselves with more care and respect? And finally, what can we learn about creating worlds that are healthier—physically, socially, emotionally and spiritually?

I’ll explore these questions by focusing on companies working to ensure that the vision and values of herbal medicine apply to the entire medicinal plant supply chain, not just the end product. In this way I hope to show how changing this particular industry is a way to change the world.

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