Inside 6-year ginseng harvest for Jung Kwan Jang

ICHEON, Gyeonggi Province — Yun Jeong-sik, a fourth-generation ginseng farmer in his 40s, was busy overseeing the harvest at his 9,900-square-meter farm on Monday. Around 50 migrant workers from Southeast Asia lined up along the cultivated mounds, where six-year-old ginseng roots lay hidden beneath the soil, ready to be unearthed and exposed to sunlight for the first time. Once tractors ploughed the mounds and pulled the crops from beneath the soil, workers handpicked them and collected them in yellow baskets, each barcoded, issued by the Korea Ginseng Corp. (KGC). The company, which runs global ginseng brand Jung Kwan Jang, has contracted with Yun to purchase the day's entire harvest. The same arrangement applied to Yun’s eight other farms in Icheon and Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province, where he plans to harvest between September and November, the annual ginseng harvesting season. Yun, who has been farming ginseng for 20 years, said the plant root, well known for its health benefits and use in traditional medicine, is difficult to grow. Quality ginseng requires very specific cultivation cWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times