NYT article

[Guest guest]

New York Times

By ANDREW DOWNIE

Published: January 1, 2008

 

NINACACA, Peru ¡ª High in the Peruvian Andes, a shaman rubs a fluffy

white rabbit all over Chris Kilham¡¯s body, murmuring in Quechua, the

language of these barren plains. Then she slits the animal¡¯s throat

and lets the blood run into a tiny grave.

 

To Mr. Kilham, the offering ¡ª an appeal to the gods for a bountiful

harvest of maca, a local tuber ¡ª is just another day at the office.

 

Part David Attenborough, part Indiana Jones, Mr. Kilham, an

ethnobotanist from Massachusetts who calls himself the Medicine

Hunter, has scoured remote jungles and highlands for three decades for

plants, oils and extracts that can heal. He has eaten bees and

scorpions in China, fired blow guns with Amazonian natives, and

learned traditional war dances from Pacific Islanders.

 

But behind the colorful tales lies the prospect of money, lots of

money ¡ª for Western pharmaceutical companies, impoverished indigenous

tribes and Mr. Kilham.

 

Products that once seemed exotic, like ginseng, ginkgo biloba or aloe

vera, now roll off the tongues of Westerners. All told, natural plant

substances generate more than $75 billion in sales each year for the

pharmaceutical industry, $20 billion in herbal supplement sales, and

around $3 billion in cosmetics sales, according to a study by the

European Commission.

 

Although the efficacy of some of the products the herbal ingredients

go into is hotly debated, their popularity is not in doubt. Thirty-six

percent of adults in the United States use some form of what experts

call complementary and alternative medicine, CAM for short, according

to a 2004 study published by the National Center for Complementary and

Alternative Medicine, a division of the National Institutes of Health.

 

Mr. Kilham believes multinational drug companies underutilize the

medicinal properties in plants. They pack pills with artificial

compounds and sell them at huge markups, he says. He wants Westerners

to use the pure plant medicines that indigenous peoples have used for

thousands of years.

 

¡°People in the U.S. are more cranked up on pharmaceutical drugs than

any other culture in the world today,¡± Mr. Kilham said. ¡°I want people

using safer medicine. And that means plant medicine.¡±

 

Easy going and earnest, Mr. Kilham, 55, caught the plant bug after

taking an herb walk at an organic farm in Natick, Mass., in 1971. A

self-described hippie, he was already into ¡°yoga, natural foods and

meditation¡± and the discovery that plants had medicinal properties had

a profound effect. He created a course in holistic health at the

University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he is now on the

faculty, and made his first overseas trip ¡ª to India ¡ª to track down

exotic flora.

 

Now he can identify unusual plants by their Latin names and he proudly

regales the uninitiated on their individual properties. Shortly after

leaving Lima on a trip taking French businessmen to the Peruvian

Andes, he stopped the van and enthusiastically explained how the

tropane alkaloids in a dusty plant he spotted by the side of the road

are used by ophthalmologists to dilate pupils for eye examinations.

 

Such properties are often well known by indigenous peoples. So-called

bioprospectors can make their fortunes by bringing those advantages to

the attention of companies who identify the plant¡¯s active compound

and use it as a base ingredient for new products that they patent.

 

Some 62 percent of all cancer drugs approved by the Food and Drug

Administration come from such discoveries, according to a study by the

United Nations University, a scholarly institution affiliated with the

United Nations.

 

¡°Latin American nations, especially Amazonian nations, have extremely

rich and diverse flora, so the potential for commercial applications

appears great,¡± said Tony Gross, a Brazil-based researcher at the

university. ¡°They say that in one in 10,000 you get something

interesting. So it is not a gold mine, but when you do hit on

something that does become a market leader you can make enormous

amounts of money from it.¡±

 

In Peru, Mr. Kilham is betting on maca, a small root vegetable that

grows here in the central highlands ¡ª ¡°a turnip that packs a punch,¡±

he says, adding ¡°it imparts energy, sex drive and stamina like nothing

else.¡±

 

That view is supported by studies carried out at the International

Potato Center, a Lima-based research center that is internationally

financed and staffed. Studies there show maca improves stamina,

reduces the risk of prostate cancer and increases the motility, volume

and quality of sperm.

 

Some peer reviewed studies published in the journal Reproductive

Biology and Endocrinology backed up those findings.

 

For centuries, maca has been a revered crop in this austerely

beautiful region 155 miles northeast of Lima. Inca warriors ate it

before going into battle. Later, Peruvians used it to pay taxes to

Spanish conquistadors.

 

Today, locals consume it boiled alongside dried vicu & #241;a meat in soups;

or diced with carrots, peas and cauliflowers in salads. Maca flour is

used to make sponge cake. Flavored with chocolate, it is made into

maca puffs. Villagers offer visitors maca drinks and maca juice;

airports sell maca toffees.

 

Mr. Kilham first heard about the tuber in 1996. Two years later, he

went to Peru to find out more. There he formed a partnership with

Sergio Cam, a Peruvian entrepreneur who invested much of the money he

made as a construction worker in California from 1984 to 1999 to start

Chakarunas Trading. The company is named after the Quechua word for

men who build bridges between cultures.

 

Today, Chakarunas organizes local growers to sell their maca to the

French firm Naturex, which extracts it into concentrate. Naturex sells

the concentrate to Enzymatic Therapy, a Wisconsin-based company that

makes and markets the finished maca products.

 

 

Thanks to the health supplements boom, both companies have grown, with

Naturex¡¯s revenues topping $125 million in 2007 and Enzymatic

Therapy¡¯s surpassing $80 million. Enzymatic Therapy sells $200,000

worth of maca-based products each month, said the company¡¯s chief

executive Randy Rose.

 

One product, Maca Stimulant, is sold in Wal-Mart under Mr. Kilham¡¯s

Medicine Hunter brand. Mr. Kilham earns a retainer from both Naturex

and Enzymatic Therapy, in addition to royalties from another Medicine

Hunter-branded product at Wal-Mart.

 

Mr. Kilham says he earns around $200,000 each year in retainers, and

sales are so buoyant he expects to make ¡°in the mid-six figures¡± in

royalties next year.

 

Mr. Kilham insists he is not in the business simply for financial

gain. His motivation comes from promoting herbal medicines and helping

traditional communities, he said.

 

¡°I have financial security and don¡¯t need to make money from this,¡± he

said. ¡°I believe trade is the best way to get good medicines to the

public, to help the environment and to help indigenous people.¡±

 

He and Mr. Cam pay growers here in Ninacaca a premium of 6 soles

(about $2) for a kilo of maca, almost twice the going rate of 3 to

3.40 soles a kilo. They have set up a computer room at the Chakarunas

warehouse and a free dental clinic, the town¡¯s first.

 

Mr. Kilham is clearly adored by the locals in these desolate,

wind-swept villages. On a recent visit here, shamans, maca growers and

their families flocked to him. Since only maca and potatoes grow at

this altitude, they are thankful Mr. Kilham is helping them sell their

produce.

 

He makes a point of returning regularly to Peru to affirm his

commitment to the project. On this trip, his third this year, he

brought executives from Phythea, a French company that sold 40 million

euros of natural products last year. Phythea¡¯s president, Laurent

Mallet, had heard about maca and wanted to see both the agricultural

and social aspect of Chakarunas Trading up close.

 

Mr. Mallet said he was so touched by the people and the rawness of

their surroundings ¡ª it took him seven hours by van to get here, and

several doses of oxygen to offset the headaches and nausea brought on

by the altitude ¡ª that he vowed to increase his order of maca from

five to 25 tons next year, if clinical trials in Bordeaux confirmed

that maca reduces hot flushes and night sweats in menopausal women.

 

¡°I think it could be a very good product for us,¡± Mr. Mallet said. ¡°I

especially like the human dimension. They want to build a school and a

medical center.¡±

 

To be sure, not everyone is so positive. Mr. Kilham runs the constant

risk of being branded a ¡°biopirate,¡± an outsider who steals

traditional knowledge and fails to pass on the benefits to the local

community.

 

In 2001, the company Mr. Kilham worked for at the time, Pure World

Botanics, obtained United States patents for isolating and extracting

maca¡¯s key active compounds. The Peruvian government accused the

company of profiting from what was rightfully Peru¡¯s.

 

Mr. Kilham said he fought to make his bosses open up the patents. The

company denied they had acted improperly but Naturex, which bought

Pure World Botanics in 2005, granted Peruvian companies free licenses

to the patents and vowed to increase the price paid per kilo to maca

farmers by 15 percent.

 

¡°At Naturex,¡± the company¡¯s marketing manager, Antoine Dauby, said in

a statement, ¡°we believe in giving back to the communities where we do

business. And we¡¯re doing that in Peru.¡±