2014: Bought the first 20 plants of our own, from Bulk African Trade in Ghana. The beginning of a very long test of patience, because iboga needs 15 to 20 years until harvest.
2017: 1,258 plants raised, 329 of them survived and were planted out.
2018: Visit and inspection of the cultivation in Akim Oda, Ghana, field ADOWHE 1. In October iboga.store goes online. 1,852 plants raised, 586 planted out.
2019: Company seat in Ghana, warehouse and dispatch in Austria and Germany. Iboga produced as homeopathic globules.
The globules are made in cooperation with the Engel pharmacy in Freiburg.
Homeopathic remedies count as medicines by law and are subject to the German Medicines Act. Unlike conventional medicines they do not have to prove their efficacy through studies; they are registered rather than approved. That is why manufacturers may not state indications on the packaging, and that is why we do not either.
In the same year Bulk African Trade raised 2,500 seedlings in the nursery; over the years more than 2,500 trees have been planted there.
2022: Bought the first field of our own together with our partner George Affare.
2024: The first plants of our own set on the field. Voacanga already grows there.
Voacanga africana is a fast-growing relative of the iboga shrub. Ibogaine can be obtained from it and processed into ibogaine hydrochloride of high purity. Our own HCl from Voacanga is in preparation.
2025: Bought a large field with 100 iboga trees. The trees are already 10 and 11 years old.
2026: Propagation: 150 new small iboga plants are ready for planting out. Our goal is around 200 replanted iboga plants per year.
Iboga is a recalcitrant seed: once it dries out, it is lost. The seed can only be taken from the fruit. Twice a year the tree bears orange fruit with several seeds.
The seedlings are raised under protection for up to ten months before they are allowed to grow on in the shaded forest.
Want to visit us in Ghana and see the cultivation, or own iboga plants of your own that we look after for you? Write to us.
We sell no bark under 15 years, rather 20 years and older. Iboga needs this time to develop its full content. Twenty years is a long time, especially in Africa.
It is said that you can harvest from the seventh year. We advise against it: the plant is not ready yet. Our own plants are not harvested before 15 to 20 years. Until then we buy from fair trade. Quality is simply more expensive.
We buy no bark from wild harvesting. A large part of the bark on the market comes from wild harvesting. Rarely did the seller or his tribe plant the trees themselves 20 years ago.
In the forest there is no price tag on a plant, and many help themselves to the property of others. Our scouts have also bought directly from tribes, from their stock, in Congo for example. But that is at most one kilo or less, and it is never cheap.
For these people, just as for us, iboga is not just a plant but something sacred that cannot really be measured in money.
Quality takes time and has its price. That is why we are not the cheapest iboga dealers in the EU, and we would rather forgo a sale than change that.
We want to clear up the misconception that everything from comparatively poor countries has to be cheap. How much do 20 years of a lifetime cost? Anyone who wants something from these people should also be willing to give something for it, for something that takes so long to become good.
We test every single delivery, not every single kilo. When a new delivery arrives from a region, from a farmer, a tribe or a shaman, the entire bark is ground, thoroughly mixed and only then sampled.
Three samples from different places, two independent measuring methods. This way we know what the bark really contains, because quality cannot be judged any other way than by measuring. The measured value then applies to every pack of the same batch.