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By Kim Ji-soo
Kim Su-gyeom, 53, head of Ginseng Biotechnology in Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province, remembers eating grilled ginseng while he was helping his parents grow ginseng on their farm. Grilling over a fire took away the bitter taste, and heightened the sweetness of the popular health food. Now as head of Ginseng Biotechnology, he has signed a contract with a distributor in China to sell his baked ginseng. The amount is small at the moment, 10 boxes of 200 ginseng products, all worth about $6,000.
Ginseng is a popular export of Korea, but by carving out a niche product, Kim is looking to increase trade volume in the coming days.
"My parents and I have been ginseng farmers all our lives, so I thought about how I could make ginseng more available," he said.
Kim, who has a farm 99,000 square meters in size, said he was also focused on sending his ginseng overseas, where the demand is while the domestic market is saturated. Unlike the broadly consumed red ginseng, which is simply steamed, Kim says he "bakes" the ginseng harvested from his farm at 200 degrees Celsius or higher with special equipment. His firm shares a patent with Chungnam National University. Baked at such a temperature, the ginseng is able to retain its beneficial elements, most notably saponin. Also baked ginseng tastes sweeter, "sweeter than strawberry," Kim said over the telephone. "Our product is called baked red ginseng."
Kim said while the exports to China were the first for his firm, he recently had buyers who came in from Australia and Dubai interested in his products.
The ginseng agricultural cooperatives in North Chungcheong Province also said they were loading ginseng for a $3.6 million export contract signed with Japanese companies last year, and that they were looking to export $4 million this year.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said Feb. 21 it signed a memorandum of understanding between Hadong County, known for its green tea growers in South Gyeongsang Province, and an export company to send more premium green tea to the U.S. and EU markets. Hadong has been exporting ground green tea for a while to eight countries including Mexico and Singapore.
"Our contract is estimated at 100 tons, which we will start exporting the new tea in summer," said Lee Jong-gug, head of the Institute of Hadong Green Tea. Korean green tea growing operations are not large. Compared to some 1.2 million hectares of tea-growing land in China and around 40,000 hectares in Japan, Korea's tea growing is estimated at around 2,500 hectares, Lee said. But known for its organically grown tea, the county's product has been sought since 2010 and 2011, in particular end-buyers that include Starbucks noticed the quality of its tea and management. The tea market in United States — based on wholesale terms — was estimated at $10 billion in 2014 and is expected to grow by 30 percent in 2017. The expansion of the world's tea market buoys hopes for further exports.
"I think overseas buyers have realized we are able to produce quality tea," Lee said.
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| People working in the green tea fields in Hadong, South Gyeongsang Province, which is a region known for its organically grown green tea laves. / Courtesy of Institute of Hadong Gree Tea |
The city of Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Province, said it was exporting oysters to Russia. The southeastern city has joined hands with Russian fisheries goods supplier Nordlat to promote and export fisheries goods. A city delegation was in Russia this week, leading to the signing of an export order for 200 tons of oysters, Yonhap reported. As Korea imports large quantities of Russian pollack,cod and king crab, it is looking to expand its export base to oysters.
To date, Korean frozen fishery and seaweed products have been exported to Russia in insignificant amounts. In 2015, Korea exported $16.5 million of fishery products to Russia while importing $670 million.
Export of Korean agricultural food products is not large. In 2016, it posted $6.5 billion. Because different government agencies tally up respective statistics, that figure excludes the fisheries exports. Also, the sales of food products such as Korean instant noodles are included in the export tally. These showed a 5.9 percent increase when the national exports decreased by 5.9 percent in 2016, posting $495.5 billion according to WTO numbers and giving a reason why agricultural and food produce are considered a rising export item.
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