Nicholas MorcinekJanuary 16, 2009 12:28 EST

After working in the herbal industry for more than 35 years (herbalist, farmer, product manufacturer, formulator, importer/exporter) I will tell you that I would never use commercially grown Ontario ginseng products.

They are of poor quality compared to wild, certified organic and "woodsgrown" plants. Fungicide and pesticide use (necessary to keep the plants "alive" in their forced and unnatural growing conditions) render these products mostly toxic and unsuitable for use as medicine. My staff vividly remember receiving a shipment of conventionally grown ginseng from Ontario, instead of our usual certified organic product. The chemical odour was overpowering, the taste/flavour disgusting. But what can you expect from plants constantly doused in toxic chemicals and grown in the dead, overly sprayed soil once used to grow tobacco.

Growing ginseng organically is very difficult and not very profitable (I have seven years practical experience growing certified organic ginseng). But at least it does not pollute our environment, nor does it support the war machine and weapons manufacturers, who are of course the same companies that produce chemical fertilisers and pesticides.

Ginseng production like this is a dead end (as the low prices for the product clearly demonstrate). Take away the grants and tax breaks and the whole thing falls apart. We need to see much better options for farmers than this. It's a shame that the article didn't elaborate on some of these issues.

Josh St AmandSeptember 16, 2011 19:38 EST

Wait... the war machine? Im not sure Ontario grown ginseng is feeding the fight in the middle east but if that\'s the logic you\'re going to cling to in order to insult the Ontario ginseng market and dissuade buyers, well, I expect nothing less from a snake-oil merchant. I agree the article is one-sided, but you\'re response isn\'t very backed up any further than saying \"I have 35 years experience, listen to me\".

After a little digging online, I\'ve come to the conclusion that you sell herbal wines and seem to have some sort of background in alternative medicine.

Now, I don\'t want to come out and belittle alternative medicine, since the placebo effect has been shown to work in many cases, and hey, all medicine before it becomes peer-reviewed, tried-and-tested is essentially alternative. Once it becomes reviewed, tested and if it actually works, well it become conventional medicine. So, I\'m not really downing alternative medicine.

I am a bit upset that someone who is from Ontario who must have some form of community recognition in the herbal/organic scene would come out and attack an article about a decidedly non-organic production. So did they ship you a crate by accident? Or did you try to fence some of their none organic ginseng as organic ginseng? Maybe their \"stinky ginseng\", which is a root that does not have a pleasant aroma naturally makes poor wine? The article mentions that different strains of ginseng contains varying levels of different polysaccharides. Maybe your \"stinky\" ginseng is due to a different chemical composition than the ginseng which you normally used. Maybe it was a bad shipment.

When we sell the majority of our ginseng to the Asian market, well I think THAT speaks for itself.

It\'s a shame your response didn\'t elaborate on any of the issues you presented.