Korea introduces new ginseng breeds, launch marketing campaign to boost consumption
Jinwon, left, and Jinmyeong are new ginseng breeds developed by the Rural Development Administration (RDA) to build stronger resistance to increasingly extreme climate conditions and other environmental threats. Jinwon is built with heat resistance and Jinmyeon is resilient against salty water. Courtesy of RDA
Korean ginseng researchers are creating new ginseng breeds and farming tools, and ginseng companies are investing in promoting their products abroad to reinvigorate the crop's weakening market, according to Rural Development Agency (RDA) and Korean Ginseng Corp. (KGC), Friday.
The country's ginseng experts are engaging in revitalizing the crop's production capability and market as its sales have been on a steep decline. Reasons include extreme weather conditions due to climate change that hamper the crop's growth and the global health supplement market that has grown saturated with worldwide variety.
While the world's ginseng market has been dominated by Chinese ginsengs in quantity, Korean experts are betting on local ginsengs' quality and creative recipes to introduce new savors while maximizing their health functional features.
KGC, the country's leading pivate ginseng product developer with its signature red ginseng product brand Jung Kwan Jang, in 2019 created Seonmyeong, a new breed with strong resilience to extreme heat, and registered it for a trademark.
The company proved Seonmyeong's effectiveness against heat. An average of 14.4 percent of ordinary ginseng plants have difficulties growing at two years old due to the effects of high temperatures on their leaves. With Seonmyeong, the figure stopped at just 1.9 percent. For ginseng plants at six years old, Seonmyeong again beat the ordinary breeds 9.9 percent to 13.7 percent.
The company has introduced other new breeds, including Cheonpoong and Yeonpoong. Cheonpoong has been engineered to yield a high rate of Cheonsam, the highest ginseng grade which accounts for just 0.1 percent of the country's entire ginseng yields, while Yeonpoong was also designed for a higher rate of yield.
"Since 1970, we've created 20 new ginseng breeds and registered them to the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants," a company official said.
New ginseng breeds have also been made by the RDA, a state-run research agency under the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.
After it created its first new ginseng breed, Cheonryang, which has high resilience to saltwater in 2011, the agency followed up with newer breeds with resistance against plant disease in 2013 and high temperatures in 2018 and 2019.
Besides the new varieties, the Korean experts introduced new techniques for safer ginseng harvest against varying climate conditions. KGC, after eight years of independent development, has introduced a small sunblock tunnel that provides all the ideal conditions for ginseng cultivation — keeping the ground moist, discharging water and offering the plants partial shade.
A sunblock tunnel developed by Korea Ginseng Corp.(KGC) protects ginseng from outside weather conditions in Yesan County, South Chungcheong Province, in this September 2022 photo. The facility furnishes farmlands with ideal conditions for ginseng cultivation including providing partial shade, keeping the ground moist and discharging water. Courtesy of KGC
"The new facility was more cost-effective and labor-effective than conventional sunblocks and better protected the crops from rainfall, which led to higher yields," the KGC official said. "It also improved the use of available land by 20 percent and could withstand as much as 40 centimeters of snow."
The RDA has also developed a new harvest house that has proved to reduce heat impact on the crops by 70 percent and double their yields. In 2020, its new sun-blocking film for ginseng harvest facilities earned a patent.
Ginseng roots that have gone bad during harvest / Courtesy of RDA
The agency has also been busy developing techniques to prevent the crop's natural trait that its roots rot in the soil where it has been growing for years. This problem has been forcing farmers to transplant ginseng to new lands every four to six years. The operation, costing millions of won in facility rental and transportation, comes hefty on harvesters.
The RDA first developed a diagnosis kit targeting the problem in 2018 and, the following year, introduced a new preventive techniques that used green manure plants, soil sterilization using sun rays and land fumigation. It reduced the problem by 26.7 percent for five-year ginseng. Two years later, the agency released a new manual for soil management to prevent the problem. To advance the technique, the agency last year launched a task force in collaboration with local pesticide manufacturers and the Korea Ginseng Association.
Promoting Korean ginseng-based health supplement products to foreign markets has also been undertaken by KGC.
Earlier this month, the company promoted Jung Kwan Jang in Indonesia where Megawati Hangestri Pertiwi, an Indonesian volleyball star from the brand's club for Korean V-League, Jung Kwan Jang Red Sparks, showed up with her teammates to play a friendly match with Indonesian national volleyball team.
Thanks to the Indonesian's popularity, KGC could promote Jung Kwan Jang to 16,000 Indonesians who filled Indonesia Arena in Jakarta, where the match was held on April 20 and visitors to the brand's store at the luxurious Lotte Shopping Avenue mall in the city from April 17 to 21.
"Megawati has been a tremendous strength for our Jung Kang Jang promotion in Indonesia," a KGC official said. "Just as Megawati stirred the V-League courts, Jung Kwan Jang will hopefully promote Korean red ginsengs to global health supplement markets."
The RDA took the promotion on YouTube. It has begun posting recipes using ginseng and introduced a new harvesting method to maximize ginsenoside, a functional component of ginseng.
"There has been an unproven rumor that ginseng causes a side-effect of raising body temperature and is bad for those with intrinsically high body temperature," Kwon Na-young from the RDA's National Institute of Horticulture and Herbal Science said. "We should start dissolving such rumors to maintain the ginseng market. We'll keep discovering and promoting the hidden effects of ginseng, perhaps on the back of the growing K-contents worldwide."
Ginseng farmland at the National Institute of Horticulture and Herbal Science's office in Eumseong County, North Chungcheong Province, is being sterilized under sunlight, Sept. 16, 2023. Courtesy of RDA
Difficulties in ginseng harvest
The high-valued natural roots, long beloved by Koreans for their nutritional benefits and health care functions, are particularly dependent on stable climate conditions. But because of the weather problems involving extreme temperatures and precipitation, ginseng farmers have been at their wits' end.
A large portion of the crops failed to grow properly, failing to meet expectations for crop yields or falling short of certain nutrients and losing monetary value. Considering each batch of crops takes at least six years to fully grow, such outcomes mean a significant blow to the harvesters.
From 2019 until 2023, the crop's weather-affected farmlands amounted to 13.6 million square meters nationwide, according to RDA.
"Surging mercury in summer and downpours during the annual monsoon season are particularly raising ginseng's disease risks, affecting the crops' yields and quality," said Kwon.
Health supplement market, fraught with multivitamins, probiotics, cutting-edge vegan foods and various natural ingredient extracts from the land and sea, is also shrinking ginseng's market. In 2012, ginseng accounted for more than 50 percent of the market. It dropped to 44 percent in 2018 and further down to 26 percent in 2021.
"Throughout the past decades, ginseng consumers in Korea shifted from raw ginseng to manufactured products using red ginseng, resulting in an overall drop in ginseng consumption," Kwon said. "Korean medicinal plants and herbs are losing appeal to foreign tourists as shown by their sales at duty-free shops here."