Crackdown on a Fabled Root

An endangered aphrodisiac?

What has five leaves, grows wild over nuch of the U.S. and is so prized by users round the world that certain varieties sell in unprocessed form for as much as $2,000 an ounce? One clue: it now faces an embargo because concerned Government officials are about to cut out flourishing traffic in the plant between the U.S. and the Far East. Portions of the description might apply to marijuana, heroin or cocaine, but the only product that meets all specifications is ginseng.

For centuries ginseng, a root often shaped vaguely like a human body, has been touted in Asia as an aphrodisiac, an aid to long life and a cure for everything from cancer to baldness. A small but growing number of Americans buy it in drug and health-food stores in the form of a gooey black liquid, tablets, tea and even ginseng soap. Almost all finished ginseng products sold here are imported from South Korea and other Asian countries that process the roots--but a good share of the roots themselves comes from the U.S.

The plant, which measures a foot in height, grows wild in a large area reaching eastward from the Ozarks and is cultivated commercially. The mature root, usually four inches long, weighs less than an ounce. Diggers send the roots to a handful of dealers, like Willard Magee in Eolia, Mo.; he will mail back a check based on wholesale prices (currently $95 to $110 per lb. for wild and $45 to $50 for cultivated). Though wild ginseng accounts for only 26% of U.S. production, it commands much higher prices than the cultivated variety because it is thought to be more potent. The U.S. cultivated ginseng industry is centered in Marathon County in central Wisconsin, which happens to have the welldrained, acidic soil ideal for growing ginseng. There, an estimated 65 farmers grow about 95% of cultivated U.S. ginseng.

Just about all U.S. ginseng is exported to the Far East, mostly to Hong Kong. Though the ginseng trade is small in numbers of people involved, it has grown lately at a rate that bigger export industries might envy. Because Asian supplies are not enough to meet Asian demand, U.S. ginseng exports have rocketed from $5 million in 1970 to almost $18 million last year.

As trade has flourished, the supply of wild ginseng has decreased--some experts estimate by as much as 20% during the past decade. Rising prices have encouraged even more ginseng digging, and this has further depleted supplies. So the Government is considering putting wild ginseng on a list of endangered species Washington already requires licenses for exports of wild ginseng, and the brand-new, four-member U.S. Endangered Species Scientific Authority banned exports of wild ginseng altogether last month, but exempts states that require a permit to dig wild roots.

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