Prices of traditional Chinese medicine cordyceps (“caterpillar fungus”) surge out of control; US$19/kg in 1982 to US$142,680/kg

Prices of caterpillar fungus surge out of control

Staff Reporter

• 2013-03-07

Prices of cordyceps — a traditional Chinese medicine better known in English as caterpillar fungus — have flown skywards in recent years as new buyers in the market purchase in unusually high quantities, the Shanghai-based First Financial Daily reported.

Cordyceps are caterpillars infected with a parasitic fungus, which kills its host in the end. They are mainly collected in the mountains of the frigid Tibetan Plateau during a period of over two months beginning April 20.

With researchers discovering more medicinal value in cordyceps after the 1990s, prices of the top-class medical fungus have skyrocketed from 1982’s 120 yuan (US$19) per kilogram to 1993’s 3,000 yuan (US$482) per kilogram.

Its prices shot up further to 16,000 yuan (US$2,571) per kilogram in 2003, when SARS hit China. As of last year, there were no signs of slowing up as they touched 888,000 yuan (US$142,680) per kilogram in 2012, the newspaper said,

A buyer at the Hehuachi Chinese herb marketplace in Chengdu, the largest cordyceps wholesale market in southeast China, told the newspaper that while climate has affected the harvest in recent years, hoarding by several buyers had also led to a sharp decline in the circulation of the medical fungus in the market.

Moreover, there has been an increasing number of buyers during the last two years, making purchases in tons, instead of the usual kilograms, the buy said.

According to the buyer, the amount of cordyceps traded in the market in 2012 had halved from a year earlier.

Interest from drug companies in cordyceps increased following an announcement by China’s State Food and Drug Administration last August about beginning a trial program on the use of the fungus in health supplements.

Qinghai Chuntian Medical Resource Utilization was one of the major buyers of the fungus. The amount it purchased in 2012 was equivalent to a third of the annual output of Qinghai province, according to the Chengdu-based buyer.

The strong demand for cordyceps has also ushered in the counterfeits. Buyers now have to watch out for fungus with slivers of cement or lead added to inflate the weight. The Qinghai provincial government has introduced other regulatory measures to curb this practice.

A strict national standard is required to thoroughly address the problems of the market.

“Folk medicine is usually grown in small amounts, since it is about using local resources. Those growing in the wild must be sustainable,” said Lei Jufang, chairman of a company called Cheezheng, which specializes in Tibetan medicine.

Lei said the surging prices of cordyceps deviate from the purpose of traditional medicine and the value of the medical fungus.