Norfolk, VA, US --
A recent trip to Asia by state and local officials could result in the rebound of ginseng prices that have plummeted about 50 percent in the last four years, a local ginseng association president said this morning.
The trade mission in March and early April gained promises from the Chinese government to crack down on retailers selling ginseng falsely labeled as Wisconsin-grown, said Larry Berens, president of the Wausau-based Ginseng Board of Wisconsin.
And a private-company boosted its plans to open retail outlets selling only Wisconsin-raised roots.
"These commitments could have a drastic impact on prices," said Berens, a Wausau ginseng grower. "We're standing on a diamond mine here, and we've got to find new ways to market it."
Increased Canadian competition and fraudulent sales have combined to slash $60-per-pound ginseng prices in the early 1990s to roughly $25 to $30 today, growers have said.
Now Chinese officials are pledging to help by rooting out any fraud.
"It's very significant step for the government to have made a public announcement, especially in front of the media there," said Lt. Gov. Scott McCallum, who led the trade mission to China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. "A lot of times, in the past, things were said privately and then nothing resulted."
Wisconsin ginseng growers claim mislabeling in Asia and America costs them $20 million, roughly 20 percent, in annual sales. Outrage over the issue led 75 area farmers to protest in August in the streets of Chicago's Chinatown. Marathon County farmers grow about 90 percent of the nation's ginseng .
Chinese officials are responding now, in part, because they are eager to improve their business reputation after recent charges of pirating U.S.-made products, McCallum said.
Politicians in the Chinese cities of Shenzhen and Guangzhou vowed to investigate mixing of Wisconsin ginseng with lower-value Chinese or Korean roots, McCallum said. They also pledged to enforce the Wausau-based Ginseng Board of Wisconsin's registered seal attesting to a ginseng product's Wisconsin origin.
"It's an important step in making the seal program work," said Berens, who has traveled on past state-sponsored trade trips to Asia.
Berens said 11 nations, including the United States, China and Taiwan, are members of a truth-in-labeling effort launched in 1992.
Local ginseng representatives who traveled with McCallum were in San Francisco Wednesday promoting the Wisconsin seal program and could not be reached for comment. Along with government pledges to police the ginseng industry, the Chinese company Kang Long Group unveiled plans to open hundreds of ginseng shops selling only Wisconsin-grown roots.
"We have three stores open in Wenzhou now and will open a fourth in May," Richard Yeh, the company's manager of ginseng exporting, said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles said. "Our goal is to have 100 to 200 stores within two to three years."
Berens said the creation of even 100 stores theoretically could amount to sales equaling about 30 percent of the average annual Wisconsin ginseng crop.
"Knowing their operation, it's not an unrealistic number of stores," Berens said.
McCallum took part in a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the company's two newest "Wisconsin Ginseng Specialty Stores," located in the southeastern Chinese city of Wenzhou, which has 6.5 million people in its metropolitan area.
"As far as we know, Wisconsin ginseng is the finest quality in the world," Yeh said.
Wisconsin root, used as a medicinal herb in Asia, has better taste and scent than other varieties, Yeh said. His company so far has purchased ginseng solely from Marathon County growers.
"It's definitely a sign the consumer of China are aware of the illegal mixing and want to buy exclusively Wisconsin ginseng," Berens said. "Everyone will benefit, the growers and the consumers."
BY : Kelly C Thayer
SOURCE : Wausau Daily Herald
1995. 04.
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