Idaho Dealer Is Out To Hog Wort Market Venture Farms Enrolls Growers, Plans Plant To Sell Controversial Herbal Anti-Depressant
Amid all the commotion over use of the age-old herb St. John’s wort as a natural anti-depressant or diet drug, Terry Foley is laying the groundwork for the nation’s largest hypericum-growing operation.
While the government has been trying to eradicate the weed, Foley’s Northwest Venture Farms Inc. is enrolling farmers to grow the commercial-grade seeds produced in his greenhouses and then turn in their harvest for processing at his proposed Coeur d’Alenearea plant.
Foley will broker the refined product to homeopathic drug companies.
Hypericum, or St. John’s wort, has a long track record as a nerve tonic. The golden flower, and its extract hypericin, goes back 2,400 years in folk medicine but only recently generated real demand in the United States as a natural cure.
“People have been taking it for thousands of years,” Foley said. “It’s just in the past decade that solid university studies have proven it’s safe.”
German psychiatrists now prescribe the herb four times as often as the prescription anti-depressant Prozac. But testing has yet to isolate the active ingredient. It could be the combination of several agents.
Foley is advertising for growers who each will plant at least 10 acres with sprinkler or subsoil watering. They would use the NVF-CH1 seed stock Foley has developed. Northwest Venture then would run the crop through a “micropulverizer” at the processing facility.
He has verbal commitments from farmers for about 2,000 acres - Foley’s target - although he expects some will drop out.
Yet, if his project works out, it could be a money machine.
Foley conservatively estimates that a kilo of processed wort would bring in about $10, with each acre producing enough for around 600 kilos - a gross of $6,000. He figures it costs only $550 an acre to grow and deliver the unprocessed wort to Northwest Venture.
“So it’s a quite lucrative venture,” he said.
The Panhandle is an ideal growing area. Southern Idaho appears too hot and dry for the plant, he said.
County and state officials waging a costly war with noxious weeds are watching the entrepreneur’s actions with interest.
“It’s the first time that I’m aware in the state of Idaho of having the dichotomy of a weed that is planted for other purposes,” said Loal Vance, state weed coordinator for the Idaho Department of Agriculture.
When St. John’s wort first appeared along Idaho highways and in fields years ago, it quickly covered ground, Vance said. An Australian insect, which is a natural enemy of the plant, was released and that biological agent made great inroads into its population.
But it did not completely wipe out St. John’s wort, Vance said.
“When you eradicate the plant, you eradicate the biological agent,” he said. “They fluctuate. When one is high, the other’s low.”
Foley stresses the commercial plants are not allowed to go to seed in the field. His commercial seed stock contains 5 percent hypericin, while the wild version only contains 1 percent.
Northwest Venture is cautioning farmers that while hypericin could have a profitable future, it remains a new commodity.
“I encourage them to do as much research as they can, looking in the Internet and other places,” Foley said. “Nothing’s risk-free, but we sure feel good about it.”
Foley shies away from touting it as a diet aid. Some are blending hypericin with the herb ephedra to make a natural replacement for the banned diet cocktail “fen-phen.”
Half the nearly 250,000 dieters at Nutri/System weight loss centers take St. John’s wort, claiming it helps them drop pounds.
“As far as I know, no university studies support St. John’s wort as working on weight loss,” he said.
The public’s interest in St. John’s wort is its potential to lift spirits naturally. Foley is a businessman, but he also believes hypericin offers another possible antidote to suffering.
“I just lost a daughter to cancer,” he said. “We went through the whole ordeal. We were looking into a homeopathic option. If I had to do it all over again, I’m not sure we wouldn’t go the natural route.”
xxxx Wort facts Here are some facts about the natural anti depressant, St. John’s wort: “Wort” is an old English expression for plant. It has been considered an effective antidepressant and sedative since at least the time of Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine. It has been labeled by health-food companies as “Nature’s Prozac,” “Nutritional Support for Depression” and even “Get Happy Now.”