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  • From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Herbal Expo keynote speaker calls New Mexico ‘herb central’
  • Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:16:32 -0600


June 13, 2007
Jane Moorman (505) 249-0527, jmoorman@nmsu.edu
CONTACT: Charles Martin, (505) 852-4241

Herbal Expo keynote speaker calls New Mexico ‘herb central’

ALBUQUERQUE - New Mexico is “herb central” according to a leader in the
nation’s herbal industry who will be the keynote speaker at the New
Mexico Herbal Expo Sunday, June 24, at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center.
The event, from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., is being presented by the New Mexico
Herb Growers Association with support from New Mexico State University and
the New Mexico Department of Agriculture.
“Speaking from a national level, we consider New Mexico very important in
our work,” said Jean Giblette, director of the High Falls Gardens in
Philmont, N.Y., a farm-based educational enterprise with a goal of
advancing the practice of oriental medicine through cultivation of Asian
medicinal plants.
“There is a good mix of people, the climate is very tolerant and it is
one place that we have several different herbal traditions working
together,” she said. “It is very well positioned to take a leadership
role nationally.”
Historically, herbal medicine is a tradition in New Mexico’s culture.
“New Mexico, as a state, is the one place in the country that has a
tradition of herbal medicine. It’s in people’s memories. In the
Hispanic and Native American communities, people remember their
grandmothers going out and getting specific herbs and using them for the
family’s medicine. That is unique in the United States,” she said.
In terms of state legislation, Giblette said New Mexico is “very forward
thinking. It has one of the best state licensing laws for oriental medicine
and for herbal medicine.”
As a participant in the first Herbal Expo last year, Giblette said she was
impressed that Miley Gonzales, secretary of the New Mexico Department of
Agriculture, was the keynote speaker.
“It was an amazing fact to have a state’s secretary of agriculture
speak to 150 people who are interested in herbs,” she said. “He said we
have to change policy at the state level so we can get more resources for
specialty crops before it can ever happen at the national level. This made
so much sense to me that there would have to be a number of states taking
action first.”
Giblette compliments New Mexico State University’s work in promoting the
herbal industry through its research at the Sustainable Agriculture Science
Center at Alcalde.
“I think the Alcalde facility is a jewel among the land-grant
universities nationally,” she said. “The fact that they have committed
themselves to medicinal plants as a prime area of specialty crop research
and as a possibility for sustainable farming is very forward thinking.”
She sees an opportunity for farmers in many areas of the country to benefit
from raising specialty crops such as herbs.
“Historically, in the Northeast (United States) we’ve never had large
farms or been in commodity farming in a big way,” Giblette said. “Farms
have always been highly diversified operations. I feel this area is poised
to come back to specialty crop growing in a big way and I would like the
people here to listen to and follow New Mexico’s lead. They have a lot to
learn from New Mexico.”
Giblette will be among several leaders in herbal and oriental medicine who
will be presenting at the Herbal Expo. Among them will be Z’ev Rosenberg,
doctor of oriental medicine and department chair of herbal medicine at
Pacific College of Oriental Medicine in San Diego; Althea Horthage-Orr,
founder of the Chicago College of Healing Arts; and Roy Upton, executive
director of the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia, a non-profit organization
dedicated to the development of quality control standards in botanical
products.
Event organizers encourage growers, vendors and anyone providing a service
that involves herbs, such as massage therapy, aromatherapy or body and skin
care using herbal products, as well as users of such services, to attend
the conference. The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center is at 2401 12th Street
N.W. in Albuquerque.






  • [Livingontheland] Herbal Expo keynote speaker calls New Mexico ‘herb central’, TradingPostPaul, 06/20/2007

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