Re-connecting agriculture, ecology and human health through medicinal plants.
All aspects of the health of our planet and its life forms, in any size or shape, are interconnected and intertwined. As humans, we tend to forget that we depend on plants for most of the things we need to survive and to thrive, from our basic needs for housing and clothing, to our health and wellbeing. They provide us with the oxygen we breathe, the nutrients we need to grow, regenerate and keep healthy, the many substances in our skincare products and cosmetics, and the many many medicines we need in support of our health.
Medicinal plants are in fact plants that over time have developed amazing strategies for survival that we as humans can benefit from in many different ways. Anything developed by plants, from roots to the stem, the leaves, the fruits and the seeds, can serve us just as much as it serves them. They do not only support us for our survival, but can also be great allies in restoring the damage done if we start collaborating with them again.
The concept of Medicinal Agroecology builds on the rehabilitation of medicinal plants for the prevention and treatment of food system related diseases, from a holistic, 360 degree perspective to health. Hence the name of my company, Health Perspectives. The story of Parkinson's and an Ayurvedic herb called Mucuna pruriens help to exemplify the concept.
The introduction of industrial agriculture and synthetic medicine have alienated us from herbs. We forgot their names, we forgot about their properties and their uses, and we fail to see their importance in agriculture and health. Agriculture and Medicine have become separate worlds, and people feel separate from nature.
Medicinal Agroecology aims to restore the connection between nature and agriculture, between plants and humans, through a holistic health approach. It aims to do so by bringing together the knowledge about the agroecological and the medicinal value of plants. It seeks to become a means to help restore our respect for plants by re-learning about their amazing properties and telling their amazing stories. Its purpose is to contribute to the development of a life supporting, resilient and transparent food and health system. It was inspired by an Ayurvedic herb called Mucuna pruriens. You can read the story in my LinkedIn newsletter Crossroads: how it all began.
Medicinal Agroecology aligns with the concepts of agroecology and One Health, and adds to it by putting medicinal plants - often referred to as herbs - at the forefront.
The Agroecology Europe association (AEEU, founded in 2016) considers agroecology jointly "as a science, a practice and a social movement. It encompasses the whole food system from the soil to the organization of human societies. It is value-laden and based on core principles." (Agroecology Europe, 2024).
One Health is defined by WHO as "an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems." (WHO, One Health). It recognizes that the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants, and the wider environment (including ecosystems) are closely linked and interdependent.
Medicinal Agroecology is the title of a scientific publication initiated and edited by Dr. Immo Norman Fiebrig. The concept was developed from and inspired by our joint and individual experience and work with Mucuna pruriens and Parkinson's: Dr. Fiebrig's work in support of Mucuna pruriens for Parkinson patients in his time as a pharmacist in Germany, and my personal experience as a caretaker, a volunteer in the Dutch Parkinson's Association, and my deep professional connection to sustainability in farming and food systems.
The collaboration resulted in Chapter 3 of Medicinal Agroecology: Mucuna pruriens vs. Morbus Parkinson: Making the Case for Medicinal Supplements within Medicinal Agroecology. This and other chapters are reviewed in my LinkedIn Newsletter Medicinal Agroecology.
The way we have come to grow our food is directly linked to the negative health outcomes of our food system for humans and for nature. The relationship between our food system and all kinds of chronic diseases and disorders, like cardio-vascular diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, cancers, diseases of the digestive system, respiratory diseases, reproductive disorders and obesity is becoming more and more clear. It causes serious problems and distress for millions and millions of people around the globe who see their lives, their relationships and their income seriously affected. On top, it is creating enormous stress on our health systems and our economies (FAO, 2017).
The destruction of forests, monoculture, the use of heavy machines and the ever increasing use of synthetic fertilizers and many different kinds of synthetic pest, weed and fungi control products has seriously affected the health of our air, soils, water reservoirs and that of the ecosystems these form part of. Industrial agriculture has gradually become more of a constant fight against nature than a collaboration with nature.
Further reading: Industrial agriculture is known to contribute to 12 to 13% of global CO2 emissions (Our World in Data, 2019; World Resources Institute 2020), to have reduced insect diversity and density in Europe by 70% to almost 80% (butterflies, flying insects, ground-foraging arthropods) in the past 20 to 30 years (MDPI, Environments, 2024), and to pollute the water we depend on for consumption and irrigation (European Environment Agency 2025), as well as the air we breathe (National Library of Medicine, PubMed Central, 2023) and the food (e.g. strawberries, PAN Europe, 2026) and beverages (e.g. coffee: National Library of Medicine, PubMed Central 2022) we consume. You can read more about it in the August 2026 article Threats Posed by Pesticide Contamination in Agroecosystems, published on Science Direct.
By now, Parkinson's, and many other diseases and disorders have been linked to - among others - prolonged exposure to harmful pesticides and pesticide residues in our food, water reservoirs, the homes we live and the air we breathe. The fact that Parkinson's disease was recognized as an occupational disease among for instance wine producers in France in 2013, and the recent call in Spain to do the same, are exemplary, as are the multifold lawsuits of patients against big agrochemical companies like Bayer-Monsanto and Syngenta. Based on a systematic review of its prevalence in the past forty plus years, Parkinson's is by now recognized as the most prevalent neurological disorder after Alzheimer's, and, as it seems, with the fastest growing prevalence and disability among neurological diseases, with substantial impact on medical systems and public health (Science Direct, The Lancet Healthy Longevity, July 2024).
Up until today, Parkinson's disease cannot be cured. It is a highly invalidating disease, with enormous impact on patients, their caretakers and the health system in general. In spite of decades of research, it has no cure. Medication and treatment available can only reduce symptoms and delay invalidity. Causes are not fully clear. Only in some cases there seems to be a genetic factor, but the individual risk of developing it is still not well understood.
At the same time, there is growing evidence for the correlation between certain chemicals - used in industry and agriculture - and the incidence of the disease in areas or professions where people are exposed to them for an extended period of time.
Where chemical pressure in early 20th century London was already showing a correlation between exposure to certain chemicals used in industry and the development of Parkinson's, today its growing incidence is more and more attributed to chemicals used for pest control in industrial agriculture. The number of people formally diagnosed with Parkinson's globally has doubled between 1990 and 2015, with the expectation that this number will double again to around 12 million people in 2040. The real numbers are likely to be far higher, since in many countries around the world the health care systems are not equipped to diagnose the disease, and its symptoms are often not recognized as such.
This has been a reason for three Parkinson specialists from the US, and Dutch neurologist and internationally renowned Parkinson's expert Bas Bloem to make the correlation between agrochemicals and Parkinson's visible and call for action to halt this growth (Ending Parkinson's Disease, 2020; De Parkinson Pandemie, 2021). Their plea is to focus on prevention instead of treatment. They call for a ban on pesticides or pesticide combinations that we know to be harmful, and a halt to and stricter regulation for the ones - which means practically all - we do not have sufficient knowledge about. In their view, the best strategy is to ban chemical pesticides altogether and a shift to natural ways to produce our food.
If there is growing evidence of the prevalence related to the way we grow our food, changing the way we grow, produce and consume our food becomes a means of prevention. It starts with shifting to agricultural systems that work with nature, and from there support life and health.
Science is increasingly understanding how the health of soils and plants is directly related to our gut health. The soil microbiome and richness in terms of minerals affects the nutritious value of plants and fruits, and from there our gut microbiome and our overall health. In turn, more and more chronic diseases such as cardio-vascular diseases, neurological disorders, diabetes, digestive diseases, asthma, rheumatism and obesity, but also mental disorders are being linked to gut health. On average 6 out of 10 people suffer from one of these diseases or disorders.
In agricultural systems that support health - like agroecology, organic agriculture, biodynamic agriculture, regenerative agriculture and agroforestry - medicinal and aromatic plants, also referred to as herbs, play a crucial role. The many different physical properties of plants turn them into key players in restoring, supporting and maintaining not only our health, but also that of soils, other plants, and ecosystems.
This section is still being written — check back soon.
I'm the founder of Health Perspectives. Alongside my work at Solidaridad, I set this consultancy up to give a dedicated home to a question that kept following me: what changes when we treat medicinal and aromatic plants as part of a living ecosystem, rather than raw material to extract and standardise?
That question became Medicinal Agroecology. It led me to co-author the main chapter of Medicinal Agroecology: Reviews, Case Studies and Research Methodologies, edited by Dr. Immo Norman Fiebrig, and it now runs through the advisory work I do, the research I contribute to, and a LinkedIn newsletter where I keep unpacking the book, chapter by chapter.
Based in the Netherlands, I work with organisations and researchers across agriculture, ecology and health who are asking similar questions — about where nature-based solutions genuinely support health, and how to bring dense academic material into practical use.
"Health is the new sustainable. We need to ask ourselves one question only: If whatever we do is detrimental to the health of the planet and its inhabitants, we should not do it and make other choices instead. This applies to health in all its dimensions, from physical and emotional health, to socio-economic and ecological health.
In my view, plants are forgotten sustainability champions. They can help us restore much of the damage done to the planet and life on the planet, including ourselves.
Since industrialization, we have been polluting our planet in an unprecedented way. Recent research is providing shocking insights into the burden of pollution weighing on the earth and its living beings. It is seen and found in the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat. It enters our body through our noses, mouths and skins and has started to express itself through all kinds of chronic diseases like allergies, cancers, cardiovascular conditions and neurodegenerative disorders.
Microplastics, forever chemicals, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, it is just too much to take. Even if our bodies can resist for quite a while, smaller organisms like the microbes and fungi that keep our soils healthy, or the pollinators that sustain our ecosystems, cannot. We depend on them for our health, but don't seem to understand that as we undermine them, we undermine ourselves.
If the bees that pollinate the plants that we rely on in so many ways die in winter from eating their own polluted honey, we know that - if we don't act - we are next.
Health is maintained through the principle of 'prevent and cure'. Throughout the history of the planet, plants have helped all other organisms do just that. The mechanisms and properties they developed for their own survival, help others and the systems they rely on to survive as well, no matter how big or small, how simple or complex.
We have so much knowledge about plants and their many different properties, but the knowledge is scattered and used in isolated ways. Once we start combining this knowledge again into holistic approaches and uses, we can benefit from their full potential.
Somewhere along the way we have come to disrespect plants and trees. It is high time we start treating them with respect again and that we facilitate them in all their diversity.
We make a difference between food crops and medicinal plants, but, nor for our bodies, nor for nature there is any such distinction. The distinction is artificially created by science and the business models that have been built from their value, depending on the use we make of them. In the end they all serve the same purpose: support and maintain health.
Ayurveda, the Indian traditional "science of health" is the oldest documented health system humanity still has access to. It is the most holistic system we know, with a direct connection between the food we eat and the way it is produced, and with a deep spiritual respect for nature and its "divine" complexity, which is beyond human understanding. Ayurveda reflects a deep understanding of and respect for the principles of nature. The principles that rule nature as they rule us, humans, through the estimated 39 trillion microbes - against the estimated 30 trillion human cells - with which we live in symbiosis every day of our lives."
— Monique van de Vijver, founder of Health Perspectives
Medicinal Agroecology is not only a way of thinking — it shapes how I advise organisations, what I write about, and how I read and translate the wider research field. Three places to see it in practice: