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by author Maxwell Morgan
Each summer, workers toil on a section of land in the Swiss town of Roggwil, growing and harvesting medicinal plants.
They are employees of Bioforce, the largest manufacturer of fresh herb tinctures in Europe. Although they appear to be doing what millions of farmers do every day, their methods are unique.
The workers use only organic farming methods and avoid insecticides, fungicides, or non-natural fertilizers. The farming and harvesting is done by hand. To ensure against crop contamination or inferior products, a percentage of plants go to seed each year, which ensures that Bioforce has a ready supply of seeds and is not reliant on seed suppliers. If, for example, the echinacea crop is severely damaged by drastic changes in the weather, Bioforce won’t buy echinacea from another source. The crop will be replanted the following year.
The employees have also embraced the challenge and responsibility of following the vision and inspiration of the late Alfred Vogel, the Swiss nutritionist, herbalist, and naturopath who founded Bioforce in 1963 to meet the ever-increasing demands for his natural herbal remedies.
Natural Inspiration
During his early childhood, Vogel learned about the therapeutic and medicinal properties of plants from his family. Vogel developed a lifelong fascination with medicinal flora and eventually travelled throughout the world, learning about plants and traditional folk medicines.
In Teufen, Switzerland, in 1933, Vogel started practising naturopathic medicine and employed holistic tenets that maintained nature provides us with the means to ensure health protection and preservation. Cultivating his own medicinal herbs, he began developing natural remedies for a variety of ailments. Vogel realized that if he used the whole herb soon after harvesting and processed it in alcohol his herbal remedies were more effective than when he used dried herb preparations.
During his life, Vogel’s herbal medicine fact-finding travels took him to Africa, Asia, and the Americas, as well as the South Pacific region. The Swiss naturopath had a deep affinity for native cultures and gleaned a tremendous amount of knowledge regarding medicinal plants and traditional healing methods. A great deal of this information is contained in The Nature Doctor, which was first published in 1952. Vogel’s comprehensive book, a manual featuring traditional and complementary medicine, has since been reprinted and updated many times and has sold several million copies to date.
The Evolution of Echinacea
It was during his visit to South Dakota that Vogel met Black Elk, a Sioux medicine man who explained the medicinal wonders of Echinacea purpurea, a plant with a long history of usage by Native Americans. Black Elk presented Vogel with echinacea seeds, which the peripatetic Swiss took back to his native country and planted in his herb garden. Vogel has been credited as being the person who introduced echinacea to millions of people worldwide. Echinacea remedies, based on Vogel’s processing methods, are still among the most popular and widely used of the Bioforce stable of products.
The Legacy Continues
Although Vogel passed away in 1996 at the age of 94, his teachings and practices seem fresh and timeless, especially to the hundreds of Bioforce employees around the world. The people at Bioforce faithfully adhere to Vogel’s philosophy, especially the following tenet: “Each plant is complete in itself; it is the result of a formula based upon intelligence, forethought, and wise planning. The precious value of an individual plant is jeopardized if
its delicately balanced structure is torn apart.”
Maxwell Morgan is a Langley BC writer.
Source: alive #261, July 2004
