Hang Fat of Hong
Kong, the biggest buyer of Ontario-grown ginseng, has vanished.
Payments to
growers stopped this year, but nobody’s talking to reporters about what’s
happening.
Ontario Farmer
placed many calls to the association and its president, but has had no
responses.
Reporter Katia
Dmitrieve went to the annual meeting of the Ontario Ginseng Growers Association
at Delhi and reports in Bloomberg News that nobody was talking to reporters
there, either, but they were huddling in clutches talking to each other.
Demand for
ginseng has been strong, resulting in huge profits from the record 3,350
hectares in production this year.
That’s double the
area in production five years ago.
Many people have
made small fortunes on the crop over the last few years; if they’re worried
that demand and prices might collapse now, they’re not showing it.
Ginseng
production began in the 1980s after the collapse of the supply management system
run by the Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers Marketing Board.
That set off a
search for alternative crops. Potatoes, peanuts, various vegetables and some
exotic crops are all being grown where tobacco once grew.
Ginseng requires
shade, so growers stretch black netting over posts. It takes several years for
a newly-planted crop to reach harvesting maturity, so capital investments are more
than $50,000 per hectare.
There is no crop
insurance.