The Commercialisation of the Devil’s Claw

by Mapeu Gaolaolwe
National Conservation Strategy Coordinating Agency (NCSA), Botswana

Country:

Botswana

Name and type of genetic resource:

The devil’s claw, Harpagophytum procumbens (Burch.) Dc. ex Meisn. (Pedaliaceae), is a weedy perennial with a central taproot and secondary root tubers (storage roots) branching off horizontally. The roots are found up to 2m deep and the secondary storage roots are up to 25cm long and 6cm thick. The devil’s claw is native to the Kalahari Desert of South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. In Botswana the devil’s claw is protected by the Agricultural Conservation Act (1974) and accompanying regulations of 1977.

Actors involved:

  1. Agricultural Resource Board (ARB): Government department issuing permits to control extraction and trade in Harpagophytum. There are three types of permits, an extraction permit, a transfer permit and an export permit. The extraction permit states conditions that the extractor has to follow to ensure that harvesting is sustainable.
  2. Traditional communities: Mostly the San people obtain the extraction permit, and each permit is issued to one individual person in the community for three months, for a specific locality, and stipulates a specific quota. They also obtain a transfer permit to enable them to transfer ownership of the harvested dried devil’s claw to their buyers.
  3. NGOs, e.g. Thusano Lefatsheng and Veld Products Research, buy the devil’s claw from the traditional communities and then sell the devil’s claw to both local and international markets (South Africa, Germany, France, and South Korea) using an export permit.
  4. Pharmaceutical companies in Europe and East Asia: (being the last actor in the value chain, they make the most of it)

How the genetic resource is used:

Devil’s claw is used traditionally by San bushmen as a digestive tonic, for headaches, fevers and allergies, and as an ointment to alleviate pain during childbirth. Its medicinal properties were learned from the San by G.H. Mehnert, a German, in 1907. After initial testing of its properties in the 1950s, more recent clinical trials have established that devil’s claw has anti-inflammatory and anti-arthritic properties for patients with degenerative joint disease. Traditional communities still prefer to eat raw tubers as they believe in their medicinal strength as compared to devil’s claw pills or creams.

Today the exported devil’s claw roots are used by numerous pharmaceutical companies in Europe and East Asia to produce pills, capsules, teas, and creams for the treatment of diseases like rheumatism and arthritis.

Type/kind of ABS agreement (e.g. MTA, private contract, MoU, agreement under ABS legislation)

None.

Agreed benefits in the agreement (refer to Appendix 11 of the Bonn Guidelines for examples of monetary and non-monetary benefits)

Does not apply.

Benefits realized to date (refer to appendix 11 of the Bonn Guidelines for example of monetary and non-monetary benefits)

Thusano Lefatsheng started selling the Devil’s Claw since 1986, and money was the only source of benefit between the sellers, buyers and exporters.

Direct contribution to poverty alleviation:

Increasing rural off-farm incomes and hence providing the poor people in those villages with some cash to keep their lives going.

Helps treating some diseases in poor communities hence sparing the little money they have for other things.

Lessons learned to date:

Some villagers voluntarily practice rotational harvesting by harvesting in different directions away from the village each year to give the resources time needed to recover.

The NGOs engaged in exporting the devil’s claw have experienced some challenges in marketing the product leading to stockpiling from the previous harvest. The reason being that their international markets e.g. South Korea and France have not placed any orders with them for that period, but they believe there is greater potential for increasing the benefits by marking the devil’s claw to other countries; e.g. India, China, USA, etc.

What changes at local, national and/or international level would significantly have made difference regarding benefit and poverty alleviation?

  • Local: If there could be a dedicated resource user group to increase the use of the resource over the modern medicine within local communities. The idea is to have more locals using the product (already harvested) to avoid stockpiling with NGOs waiting for orders from Europe and Asia.
  • National:

 Increased geographical coverage for harvesting;

 Involvement of private sectors (local pharmacies/herbs stores) in promoting the use of the devil’s claw.

 Access to finance by NGOs (Thusano Lefatsheng and Veld Products) for trading the devil’s claw locally and internationally.

 Inclusion of the devil’s claw in programmes such Community Based Natural Resource Management.

  • Regional: Joint strategic marketing initiatives.