Organic produce of medicinal herbs in Australia

Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) guidelines have been developed internationally to ensure consistency of practice and Australian National Standard for Organic and Bio-dynamic Produce has broader implications. Both of them have been applied to the production of herbal medicines including Chinese herbal medicines. This paper compares the similarities and differences of these two set of standards and illustrated the application of these standards in a Chinese herbal medicine farming project funded by the Australian Government and RMIT University, Australia through an effective collaboration of academic institution with local government, farmers’ association as well as the industry. This collaboration will contribute to the development of herbal medicine as a responsible industry and provide means to ensure quality of herbal medicines for safe use.