By Mark Multer
For the Daily Tribune, Posted September 28, 2007

Local ginseng growers this month joined Gov. Jim Doyle on a trade mission to China to promote their products and applaud the Chinese government's efforts to crack down on the illegal sale of ginseng falsely passed off as being from Wisconsin.

Since March 2006, the government there has conducted 50 raids and seizures of bogus products to protect the Ginseng Board of Wisconsin Seal and help farmers here begin to reclaim their place in the market, said Butch Weege, the board's executive director.

"The Wisconsin seal has been infringed upon, like a lot of other products in China," said Weege, who owns a ginseng farm near Lake Du Bay. "They tend to do knockoffs and copy your brand.

"We're trying to resurrect this industry and keep Wisconsin ginseng on the face of the Wisconsin agricultural map."

Weege estimates that 80 percent to 85 percent of the ginseng grown in Wisconsin is exported to Asia and the Chinese market for medicinal and dietary use. The proliferation of what officials deem inferior ginseng grown in Canada and China, however, led to a dramatic drop in price for Wisconsin-grown ginseng and forced many farmers out of business in the past decade.

In the early 1990s, the state had about 14,000 ginseng farmers producing 2.4 million pounds of the root annually, Weege said. Those numbers since have dropped to about 500,000 pounds a year being produced by 150 to 200 farmers.

Hsu's Ginseng Enterprises of Wausau accounts for 20 percent of the state's production, said owner Paul Hsu, who raises 800 acres of the crop in Marathon County. Both he and Weege say locally grown ginseng has a distinct taste and aroma, and unlike foreign-grown crops, it is regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration.

"Everybody in our trade knows that American ginseng produced in Wisconsin is the best; there's no doubt about that, but we need to repromote and refocus," Hsu said.

The trade mission included the introduction of Wisconsin ginseng in Singapore by Eu Yan Sang, the exclusive worldwide distributor of ginseng bearing the Wisconsin seal.

"For the first time, we are there, and we were physically present for that launch," Weege said.