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State botanist Malissa Briggler of the Missouri Department of Conservation was among the featured speakers Friday at the 2019 Missouri Botany Symposium held on the campus of Missouri S&T. Briggler is also a coordinator with the Missouri Ginseng Program.
Her address Saturday focused on Missouri’s annual wild ginseng harvest and potential regulatory changes to reduce poaching. She said recent data indicates Missouri has become a hotbed for ginseng laundering and millions of dollars’ worth of international sale of suspected illegally harvested ginseng.
In the United States, Briggler said wild ginseng grows mostly in the highland Appalachian and Ozark areas of the country with North Carolina and Tennessee leading the nation in production. In Missouri, wild ginseng is mostly found within the rugged areas of the central Ozarks and St. Francis Mountains.
Although viewed by some as a foreign herb, Briggler detailed ginseng has a rich American history. She said Native American and Asian cultures favored ginseng for medicinal purposes since its roots grow to resemble a human body. Early European settlers started harvesting ginseng as they spread across America and by the 1700s a market was already established for its trade. Many of the most prolific early ginseng diggers were fur trappers such a Daniel Boone. In fact, during the Revolutionary War, General George Washington ordered Boone to gather ginseng to help fund the war effort.
Ginseng harvesting remained unregulated in America until the United States entered the international CITES Treaty. The agreement (short for Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) prohibits or regulates the sale of plants, animals or natural products which may be harmed by international trade. The result today is ginseng is the only commercially harvested wild plant in Missouri and the only plant with a regulated harvest season in the state. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is officially tasked with working with state partners to ensure ginseng is harvested legally and within regulations each year.
The ginseng harvest season in Missouri is currently Sept. 1 to Dec. 31. Residents are free to harvest as much ginseng as they desire from private property with landowner permission. However, no ginseng digging is permitted from any public lands in the state. Dealers buying and selling ginseng must also be registered with the state.
As Briggler detailed not all ginseng plants can be harvested. To be lawfully dug up in season ginseng plants must have at least three true leaves, which Briggler said generally indicates it is approximately five years old and has already come to seed. If such a plant is harvested, Briggler said its seeds must be planted within 100 feet of the harvest location.
Briggler said recent studies have collected troubling information about modern ginseng harvesting. Despite growing media interest and market value, the annual harvest total in Missouri has seen a decline since 1995.
“That may be due to overharvesting,” Briggler said. “There could also be some other things going on. Maybe it’s generational and younger people aren’t going out and trapping and digging ginseng as much. Maybe it’s that landowner status has changed. It could also be habitat loss. We really don’t know and need more information as to why.”
Briggler said other data indicates ginseng poaching is rampant. One study she referenced reports 94 percent of all ginseng harvests were done illegally out of season and nearly all of those were through poaching on public lands or trespassing on private property.
“There are some very concerning things going on,” Briggler said. “One thing we think will help is greater accountability of who is digging and selling ginseng.”
Briggler said some Missouri ginseng dealers are specifically forging documents to make out-of-state illegally harvested ginseng appear like it is from Missouri so it can be bundled and sold. As an example, she cited a recent tristate investigation in Missouri, Arkansas and Illinois found that from 2010 to 2013 Missouri dealers specifically sold $350,000 worth of ginseng to Taiwan, $1.5 million of ginseng to Singapore and more than $5 million to Hong Kong over that period.
Briggler said among the regulatory changes being proposed to reduce this illegal poaching and trade is a $20 ginseng harvest permit for Missouri residents and $150 for non-Missouri residents. Another proposal is for a $200 permit system to be created for ginseng dealers which includes stronger documentation requirements.
“There are a lot of dealer-to-dealer transactions in Missouri which complicate our tracking system,” Briggler said. “One of the biggest areas of violations we have seen is records fraud where people lie to try and make it look like their ginseng was legally harvested.”
Briggler says planners are currently conducting stakeholder outreach and gathering feedback before formally submitting any recommended new regulations to the state Conservation Commission. She said the process should finish next year.
Visit mdc.mo.gov/about-us/about-regulations/wild-ginseng-harvest-regulations for more information on ginseng harvesting in Missouri, current regulations and potential new rules.
