Ginseng. In the U.S. we might find it in canned green tea or at a health-foods store. In Asia, it’s considered an important traditional medicine. Asian ginseng growers and hunters (it can be found in the wild or farmed) can’t supply the demand. Ginseng prices are rising. Larry Harding, a farmer in Maryland, saw opportunity. He grows ginseng and sells it worldwide.
Harding, 50, has been growing ginseng for almost 40 years now, from seed originally gathered in the wild by Kenneth Harding, his father. Kenneth Harding was an enthusiastic hunter of wild ginseng, as are a lot of the old-timers throughout Appalachia. …
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In many ways, ginseng is a farmer’s dream come true: It grows on otherwise unusable land, fetches exorbitant prices, and requires little or no maintenance.
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“[The harvest] is extremely labor-intensive,” says Harding. “I’m out there literally on my hands and knees from about August until it snows over.”
Once winter puts an end to the harvest, Harding dries his roots in a specially constructed high-circulation drying room, packs them into hundred-pound barrels, and ships them off to Thurgood Marshall Baltimore-Washington International Airport, at which point his product is passed along to buyers all over the world. Some of it goes directly overseas to China or Korea, and some goes to American dealers who sell it off to their own contacts. At the latest market rates, each barrel goes for about $50,000.
“I’m doing very well,” says Harding.
Million-Dollar Man Root: How a Maryland ginseng farmer is rolling back our trade deficit with China (Washington CityPaper; June 25, 2008)
