Wisconsin’s ginseng farmers are continuing to struggle as Chinese tariffs continue to ramp up.
Hsu’s Ginseng vice president William Hsu says this isn’t the first time Marathon County farmers have had to deal with outside interference in the markets.
“We saw something like this back in the 1990s when Canada started ramping up production and they were able to produce it cheaper than we were because of crop subsidies.”
He says the war is tough because ginseng takes such a long time to grow that you have to predict many years in advance how much you’re going to grow without knowing what the price at the sale is going to be.
“How many of you would willingly raise your hand and say I’m okay with being paid less for my crop or my output or my work five years from now?”
Hsu says the quality of Wisconsin ginseng is known across the world, it’s just that farmers will need to be able to handle the current hit on their bottom line.