Rosana Tositrakul

Rosana Tositrakul, a trained journalist with almost 20 years of experience in rural development, is spearheading a project that will facilitate the development of a traditional medicine industry and provide essential income for Thailand's rural poor.

Rosana's experience working in rural development has convinced her that Thailand's traditional medicine industry has been stifled by unnecessary legal barriers. A revival of this industry will provide a cheap source of medicine and simultaneously open up opportunities for rural people to both grow and process traditional herbal medicines. These profitable activities will create new income sources and provide both substitutes for unprofitable crops.

As managing director of the Komol Keemthong Foundation, Rosana initially encouraged villagers to collect and grow herbal medicines for their own use. While such small scale projects help villagers marginally cut their expenses, they did nothing to create income.

However, when implemented on a larger scale, raising herbal crops for medicine could feed into the growing market for alternative health care and could become a real source of income. Ultimately, these herbal crops could be substituted for other less profitable crops.

The Thai government's emphasis has been on the overall development of manufacturing and urban infrastructure; rural development has received relatively little attention. Farmers and those living in small villages are among the people left behind by Thailand's recent and rapid progress. Although these people up more than 50 percent of the population, their earnings are on average only one tenth of Bangkok residents. Presently, they are faced with the increasing cost of their of basic needs -- food, shelter, health care, and clothing -- and the falling prices of their traditional crops such as rice. Farm production costs have risen while their earnings have fallen due to increasingly competitive world markets.

The high cost of modern medicine and medical care are often beyond the reach of rural people. Yet, while there has been significant interest in reviving traditional medicine and even governmental promotion of the cultivation of herbs to encourage self-sufficiency, it remains illegal to produce medicines for sale except under limited conditions. As a result, those middle class Thais who have the desire and capability to purchase herbal medicines, spend considerable money on foreign herbal products. Significant income is therefore flowing out of Thailand for goods which can readily be produces using indigenous materials and labor.

Unfortunately, Thailand's legal framework prevents it from tapping this important market. While not strictly enforced, laws prohibiting the production of herbal medicines act as a barrier to any major and systematic development of the industry. In the meantime, Thais, rich and poor alike, continue to pay licensing and royalty fees to foreign companies while their own resources lie unused and undervalued.

Currently, there are two laws governing medicine -- one for modern, allopathic therapies, and one for traditional cures. The traditional law is extremely narrow and only allows for recipes contained in two very old textbooks. The traditional law also applies to methods of production, thereby preventing any and all innovation. Production of medicines based on the Aryuvedic or other ancient systems, or recent findings, along with use of modern solvents to make creams or ointments are all illegal. Foreign health-based manufacturers can currently buy raw materials in Thailand, and export it to their home countries where all the value-added is created.

Rosana's organization, Traditional Medicine for Self-Reliance, is working on several fronts to facilitate the development of this valuable new industry in Thailand. Increased interest among doctors and consumers in the past 15 years has created an environment ripe for change.

On the legal front, the organization lobbies senior government officials, demanding a revision of the old law or the creation of the new one. Other lobbying efforts include trying to gain approval for medicines with long track records in other countries, such as India. An example of the harm being done by the current law is the prohibition of the production and sale of a Thai herb that has been found extremely effective in combating the herpes virus because no similar recipe or usage exists in the Thai ancient texts.

Working directly with villages, the organization helps farmers achieve economies of scale in their production of herbs and to create crucial marketing linkages between producers and consumers of herbal medicines and organically grown rice and vegetables. Pill-making machines to process the herbal medicine within rural communities are already beginning to have a positive economic impact. In cooperation with several rural hospitals, Rosana has succeeded in establishing a health center that uses only traditional medicines. Yet while the center is permitted to prescribe medicines, it may not produce or sell them in the open market. Similarly, limited amounts of herbal medicines have been made available to urban consumers in a shop operated by the organization in Bangkok. Finally, the organization has implemented steps to assist farmers in finding outlets for their organically grown products.

The organization researches new medicines and methods of cultivation and production. In addition, it has established a network of communication with counterparts in countries with significant research and experience in the field in order to exchange information and knowledge. Rosana has organized several informative seminars and has succeeded in rallying key public and private sector figures to the cause.

Rosana Tositrakul has dedicated her entire working life to improve the lives of rural people and to make Thai society more clearly reflect Buddhist ideals. She emerged as a political leader during the student movements in Thailand in the 1970's, and counts Gandhi among her chief influences. Of the evolution of her work, she says, "We never thought about doing profit-oriented projects at first; however, our changing strategy is based on practical experience. Social and economic aspects of poverty are intertwined -- you have to work on both and move with the times." Rosana is married and has one child.