Highlights

• Export of this rare medicinal plant needs to be restricted due to declining populations in the wild.
• Ginseng populations in American forests have been decimated by the overharvesting, poaching, and out of season harvesting of this plant.
• Rumor has it that Hong Kong ginseng cartel have warehouses full of wild American ginseng root.
• In addition, the market price for American ginseng root is being controlled by China and does not produce a living wage for the wild American ginseng forest farmer.
• A US market needs to be built up and promoted for our wild American ginseng products, including fresh root material and leaves.

The summit addressed some of the issues currently being seen in the harvesting and sales of ginseng from North Carolina.

Part 1

How we got here.

Part 2

How ginseng can thrive in America

Part 3

Creating an American ginseng market in America

Videos provided by the Mountain Stream TV YouTube Channel

Learn more about the 2023 North Carolina Ginseng Summit at ncgoldenseal.com/2023/ginseng-summit-2023.

How we got here.

How ginseng can thrive in America

Creating an American ginseng market in America

By Carter Patterson, Environmental Sciences student, University of North Carolina  –

Have you ever been walking through the woods of western North Carolina and happened upon a small plant that looked to be a Hickory tree sapling but with red berries?

My guess is that you probably haven’t. But if you were to go back to the 1600’s, this plant would be all over the temperate forest floor.

The plant described above is known as American ginseng, Panax Quinquefolius, a very important plant that has been used by humans for medical purposes all throughout time. Due to human overharvest, ginseng populations across the eastern United States have experienced a massive decline since European settlement and will disappear completely in the wild if the rate at which ginseng is being harvested does not decline in the near future.

Ginseng has been used as an all ailment cure for hundreds of years. The Cherokee were using it before the Europeans made the sail across the Atlantic, and once the Europeans realized the similarities to its asian sister species, Panax Ginseng, a revolutionary trading system began to arise. In the 18th and 19th centuries, American ginseng was America’s second leading trading product, with only fur being traded in higher volumes. This massive trade system from the United States to China is what initialized the decline of ginseng in the eastern wilderness; unfortunately, this trade is still active and strong today.

While researching North Carolina’s policies and approach to this decline, the North Carolina Ginseng Association was quick to pop up. Founded in 2013 by Robert Eidus, a passionate ginseng enthusiast and expert from New York, the NC Ginseng Association is an organization whose goal is “to produce organically grown ginseng in the woods (forest farming) in America for Americans.”  After speaking with Mr. Eidus, the severity of this relationship between humans and declining ginseng became clear; American ginseng is in trouble in the state of North Carolina.

Eidus began the conversion by talking about how the current ginseng market prices are run by Chinese growers, who have more interest in profit than species preservation. This leads to corrupt and exploitable policies in the market: one being that ginseng needs to be just 5 years old to harvest.

“The legal age of ginseng to harvest is 5 years, which helps the Chinese because they can get more ginseng at a faster rate. However, West Virginia study shows the full complement of ginsenosides are not fully produced until year 7 which means that these plants need more time to grow before harvesting for the full medicinal benefit.”

It is this type of misinformation and greed that leads to the ignorant poaching of this marvelous plant. In 2014, the History Channel released a reality TV show called “Appalachian Outlaws” that highlighted a group of ginseng diggers in the eastern US and influenced many citizens to go into the woods to harvest some of their own ginseng for personal profit. However, these people were not following laws and protocols that the government has set out on ginseng harvest. Eidus claims that “[‘Appalachian Outlaws’] ripped more ginseng out of the ground than any other single event in history.” The problem of poaching did not stop after the show ended, but, even today, the majority of wild ginseng is dug out of the ground by poachers who just want a little cash.

This problem can be stopped if policy makers knew more about the plant that they are trying to protect. Eidus claims that they sit up in their office in the Triangle and do not go out into the field which leaves them using “twisted logic” in their decision making with regards to regulating ginseng harvest.They can see the fact that the ginseng production is decreasing but fail to see why their policies are not working. Eidus has talked with the North Carolina Plant Conservation and pushed for a license requirement, similar to the licensing process for hunting and fishing, to harvest ginseng but they simply won’t listen to him or to anyone who is actually in the field seeing the effects of poachers.

“They have created more problems than helped since the CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) treaty was signed in 1977.”

Eidus argues that policy on ginseng digging has to change but before policy can change, the general public and newcomer ginseng diggers have to change their outlook on this species of life. Because this is a small plant, and not a big mammal such as a deer or bear, ginseng doesn’t seem to be at the top of the list of concerns in America. However, this is not fair to the plant. Humans, all too often, view themselves as a higher being that is greater than the rest of the life on this planet. We use and destroy so many species for our own benefit, but those plants and animals have the right to live just as we do. Creating a mindset of respect for the plant is something that is important when sustainably collecting it for medicinal use. Ginseng owes us nothing, but yet it is giving us these medical properties and we must use what we are given in a sustainable fashion without harming the species as a whole.

When asked if he had any hope for this species in North Carolina, Robert Eidus responded with a hasty “no.” But he then went on to say that if there is rapid change in the near future then there is a slight chance to turn the wild ginseng populations around. It starts with education of the public and policy makers to realize what is actually happening to this plant and what it takes to replenish it.

“What has worked in the past is obviously not the solution.”

This article is meant to act as a message to the policy makers in North Carolina as well as to anybody who is looking into collecting ginseng themselves. We must come together as a community, educate ourselves with facts, and respect this plant as the magnificent form of life that it is. As Robert Eidus told me, we must all “WAKE UP!” and protect this species from wild extinction.

As for myself, I have hope for the future of this species as I believe humans are capable of helping a species just as easily as they can hurt one.

If you want to help, you can join the NC Ginseng Association on Facebook or get involved with local plant conferences to help spread awareness of the need for policy change.

Sources:

• History, Conservation, and Cultivation of American Ginseng, North America’s Most Famous Medicinal Plant (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-44930-8_6)
• In Defense of Plants Podcast: American Ginseng Revisited (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-381-american-ginseng-revisited/id1245995247?i=1000575276926)
• What is CITES? (https://cites.org/eng/disc/what.php)
• Appalachian Outlaws (https://www.history.com/shows/appalachian-outlaws)

We have a rich botanical legacy and how we choose to steward our forests now will have a tremendous impact as we look to the future.

Watch the six videos from the Ginseng Symposium held in Watertown, West Virginia in July of 2017.

Robert Eidus addressed the North Carolina Plant Conservation Board about banning the export of wild ginseng from North Carolina, and licensing and educating harvesters.

January 11, 2022, Chapel Hill Arboretum, Chapel Hill, NC

Good afternoon, my name is Robert Eidus. I have been a North Carolina Ginseng Dealer, and have a North Carolina nursery license, continuously since 1994. I believe I have a unique perspective on American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius), which, in my opinion, is in big trouble because of not only habitat loss and over harvesting, but uneducated out-of-season harvesting which has brought the poundage on a downward spiral.

It is my intention to show the Board and Scientific Committee that this is a man-made crisis and one that can be reversed to bring back the populations of this unique and rare plant.

Resource exploitation is not new to this planet and is one of the reasons the world got together in the late 1970s to pass the CITES treaty, with this plant on the first list of species that needed help. It is my reading of the treaty that those countries signing would put in rules and regulations that would maintain the plant’s numbers, and likewise protect its habitat. To date there is only the record of plants exported.

It would seem, from the raw numbers of pounds exported, that American ginseng’s plant numbers and habitat are troublesome. Two problems are the lack of a program to reseed or replant ginseng, and a new procedure to identify and educate the harvesters.

American ginseng has been exported to China since the 1780’s with an average of 315,000 pounds each year, or approximately 12,600,000 plants dug each year (with a pound consisting of 400 10year old plants). This is about 300 plus years or 4 trillion plants harvested, to throw out a number. We as humans can not keep taking this plant and not putting it back without dire consequences. It should be noted that before Europeans started exporting this plant it was considered a forest weed. It is not that the US government in the recent past has not given away seedlings to the public and nurseries over the years.

Is there any precedent about suspending the selling and export of wild ginseng across state lines? Since the mid 1990s, both Michigan and Maine have had a ban on exporting wild ginseng from their states.

There is also precedent when China and the US were not on the best of terms and American ginseng was banned from going to China. This could be (1) a political decision, like being on opposite sides in a war, to (2) economic decisions, especially the recent last round of tariffs in the past administration, or (3) during the Civil War when all exports stayed or were stored in the US.

So, states have banned the export of wild American ginseng across their state lines and the US has had periods in the past when export was stopped to China. The point is, whenever the export trade was halted or cut back it allowed the plant to come back in numbers and increased sustainable habitat, even if this was a collateral response.

Therefore, in my opinion, for conservation purposes, a temporary export ban could help the wild species return, as well as creating a new opportunity for NC ginseng forest farmers and nurseries to grow this crop in an organic wild-stimulated forest farming way for North Carolina residents, and an out-of-state attraction for the tourist industry.

However, if a temporary state ban is in effect for wild pouched ginseng, there is still a problem in the system that I believe needs fixing. Education of harvesters and the detrimental consequences to conservation must become forefront to NCDA. When the Covid virus was with us in 2020, I had two visits that year from young unemployed men both in early September. Both had large boxes with hundreds of ginseng roots. There was no way they could have harvested in season. On top of that, they did not know how to clean or dry the roots, so the roots started to mold out. There were hundreds of roots in each and the majority were under 5 years old or washed incorrectly. I obviously would not buy them and believe they were sent to the landfill.

In 2008, the Plant Division staff recommended to the Board (under Cecil Frost) to create a $10 Harvesting fee. This part of the meeting was never brought up or discussed. If there is a harvesting fee, then NCDA education can happen before the harvesters begin poaching out-of-season and not getting the education needed. Right now, education occurs mainly when they bring their roots to the dealer after it is too late. A ginseng harvesting fee has been established in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Maryland. It has been the USFWS’s suggestion to initiate a harvesting fee since 2008.

But the real reason for me to be allowed to talk about a state export ban and licensing of the harvesters, was the ban on harvesting in the National Forests in NC this year. The ban was reinforced in other states recently to include TN, KY, and GA, with VA in its 5 or 6th year, and Arkansas Ozark Forest since the 1990’s. I have been directed to, and recommended a Forest Service report by forest economist Frey Gregory in 2018. Thus the assessment by Gary Kauffman, in my opinion, was a wake-up call for the American ginseng plant in NC, which joined the harvest ban in other Southern Appalachian Mountain state’s National Forests.

In summary, creating a temporary export ban on wild American ginseng in NC will allow for the slow rise in plant species survival. Additional humans can help by allowing for the stratification of the ginseng seed. If a plant drops a seed there is 1% chance for germination. If we want to help this germination rate, good harvesters plant the red berries around 2 cm deep, plus a foot and a half from the plant. If this is done, there will be a 16% germination rate. However, if humans stratify the seed from fall to fall, the germination rate goes up to 90 plus %.

Creating a license for the harvesters is one of the best and easiest ways to conserve this plant. And, like the Forest Service limiting the number of pounds harvested for the season, should help with some of the out-of-season harvesting.

As a dealer, when someone has over ten pounds (approximately 4,000 plants) and swears it was off his own land, you know this is a questionable sale. They usually say the dig was legal, but when they then bring you 10 or more dried pounds right after the 15th of September and swear it was all in season, as a dealer you know they are lying. When you ask how they dried it, they will say air dried, but there is no way that can happen by mid September.

Most Ginseng Dealers will not publicly admit to participation in America’s last legally sanctioned illegal activity, the poaching of American ginseng, (which has been estimated at 85% of the wild crop). And, who is the main beneficiary? The Hong Kong Chinese, whose business model is to have their American harvesters poaching (approximately 95% of the yearly export documented) of America’s most important herb.

As one dealer stated to me, “By removing the existing trade from our forest to China, we would also help with the opioid and crack cocaine crisis.” Many harvesters are poaching to pay for illegal drugs. With harvester licensing and education, this could remove the stealing mentality from this industry and will go a long way for conservation of this plant.

Goldenseal Summit Part 1

Legislation & Conservation

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Goldenseal Summit Part 2

Forest Farming

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Goldenseal Summit Part 3

Industry & Products

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Goldenseal Summit Part 4

Extension, Education & Herbalists

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Goldenseal Summit Part 5

Non-Profits

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Participants in these discussions include:

• John Ager
• Lisa Soledad Almaraz
• Patryk Battle
• Margaret Bloomquist
• Katie Commender
• Dr. Jeanine Davis
• Jeannie Dunn
• Robert A. Eidus
• Kate Farley
• Joe Hollis
• Gary Kauffman
• Susan Leopold
• Robert Peet
• Lesley Starke
• John Stock
• Paul Strauss
• Shawn Swartz
• Marc Williams
• Ross Young

The areas of discussion include Government/legislation, product manufactures, existing Goldenseal farmers, Universities and agricultural extensions, herb schools, non-profit plant organizations, and Native Americans.

by Kate Farley –

Robert Eidus is an avid American ginseng grower and educator who owns and operates Eagle Feather Organic Farm. To cultivate the next generation of responsible forest farmers, he also hosts classes, workshops, a radio show, and serves as president of the North Carolina Ginseng Association.

“It seems like with the environment, everyone’s up on trees and animals and insects and butterflies. But the plants are just not really defended at all.”

Robert Eidus considers his life’s purpose defending Appalachia’s wild woodland medicinal plants—plants like trillium, goldenseal, and especially American ginseng. At Eagle Feather Organic Farm, a medicinal plant nursery nestled in a mountain hollow north of Marshall, North Carolina, Eidus propagates a wide variety of medicinal herbs that he offers for sale and prepares into medicinal tinctures and capsules.

The heart and soul of Eidus’s work is American ginseng. Eidus got a later start in ginseng compared to many other growers and dealers. His first career was in real estate in Raleigh, North Carolina, but he grew frustrated with the business and yearned for a job that would be more physical and enable him to cultivate a deeper connection with the natural world.

“Whether it was a dream or a vision or whatever, I thought that I had this conversation with Grandfather Ginseng about being a person who could advocate for the plants. And that was kind of it.” In the early 1990s, Eidus built a house on the property that is now Eagle Feather Farm and began to seek prominent herbalists and experts in plant lore to help him learn how to steward the plants. Eventually, he settled on the technique of “wild simulation,” wherein the plant grows organically in a forest plot that mimics ginseng’s natural habitat.

Eidus is also a registered ginseng dealer and occasionally buys wild plants to process into medicine. However, he will buy ginseng only from those who harvest ginseng responsibly. Eidus promotes responsibility among other ginseng farmers, and encourages them not to use chemicals, which he believes poison the plants. He seeks to cultivate the skills of others through site visits, phone consultations, and workshops, as well as information made available through his website and local radio program.

As president of the North Carolina Ginseng Association (NCGA), Eidus supports sustainable ginseng growing and harvesting even further. He has used the NCGA to build community among younger, newer ginseng growers in North Carolina. The NCGA also advocates for state-level policies in North Carolina that incentivize organic ginseng growing and preserve wild populations.

Robert Eidus wears many hats, from consultant to association president, but above all he is a champion of ginseng stewardship and intends to see the plant thrive for many generations to come.

The Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage will be launching a new web site sometime in the next few months, featuring 50 profiles of American ginseng experts from around the Appalachian region. The site is called “American Ginseng: Local Knowledge, Global Roots” and its aim is to provide a wide variety of expertise to inform people about this amazing plant, its ecosystem, and the need for conservation of ginseng and other forest botanicals.