Production regionalization of commonly used medicinal plants in China based on botanical big data

Developing the agriculture of Chinese materia medica (CMM) is an effective way to meet the market demand and conserve wild medicinal plant resources. However, blind introduction and homogeneous competition have hindered the sustainable development of CMM agriculture. To address this issue, the commonly used medicinal plants were ranked based on their frequency of clinical usage, geographical distribution range, economic value, and threatened status to set development priorities. Using 283,191 records of suitable producing regions, a county-level planting plan for 710 medicinal species in China were provided based on their development priority index. This study found that cultivating approximately four species per county and planting every species in 19 counties would be optimal. The proposed production regionalization for the commonly used medicinal plants in China can not only avoid blind introduction and homogeneous competition, but also (1) facilitate the large-scale production of CMM plants and reduce production costs, (2) help control the concentration of effective components in CMM raw materials, and (3) alleviate the imbalance between supply and demand in the market. The innovative approach of this study could also be applicable to other industrial crops and economic plants worldwide.