Farm to table: Wisconsin to China

Wisconsin's state motto is Forward. And that's what it is doing with its exports to China, moving forward with products that include ginseng, cranberries and cheese, reports HEZI JIANG.

In the early 1900s, farmers in Marathon County in central Wisconsin who grow ginseng started talking about China.

Today, their grandchildren closely watch the latest news about China on trade, currency exchange and the growing middle class - and for good reason. Wisconsin is the US' largest grower of ginseng, and China is the biggest importer.

A hundred miles down south is the village of Warrens, where China was rarely brought up as a topic a decade ago among cranberry growers. In recent years, the growers have looked beyond the saturated US market to the world's second-largest economy.

And Wisconsin, known as "America's Dairyland", is promoting its artisan cheese to China.

While not many Chinese consumers have a taste for artisan cheese - US cheese consumers eat an average of 34 pounds a year, while Chinese consumers eat an average of only 2 pounds - some think it may become as popular as chocolate in China.

Exports surge

Wisconsin sold $234 million of agriculture goods to China in 2016, almost double the amount of five years ago. China is the state's third-largest export destination behind Canada and Mexico in both total exports and agriculture exports.

Top agriculture commodities sold to China include wood, raw hides and skins and dairy products, according to the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. But if one asks which product best represents the ties between Wisconsin and China, the answer would be ginseng.

Bob Kaldunski has been growing ginseng for 34 years, and his family has been doing it since the 1920s. "It's a valued crop. It's not just a commodity," he said. "You know someone cherishes it."

And that "someone" is often in China. The bittersweet ginseng herb, which the farmers call the "golden root", is treasured by Chinese for its potent medicinal properties, including improving brain function and reducing fatigue.

Every year, Chinese wholesalers travel to central Wisconsin to buy tons of newly harvested ginseng. The state accounts for 95 percent of the US' cultivated ginseng, and 80 percent of it is exported to China. The rest goes to other Asian countries, and to the Chinatowns in the US, where roots are bought as gifts by immigrants and travelers and then taken to China.

The latest news

Kaldunski has not been to China, and neither have most of the state's other small-scale ginseng growers. He plants about 8.5 acres of ginseng. But the growers know the latest economic news about China and its growing middle class.

Asked how important China is to him, Kaldunski said,"Probably second to the weather."

Wisconsinites have been harvesting wild ginseng and selling it to China for hundreds of years.

But growing ginseng as a crop goes back to 1904 when four young boys from the Fromm family, whose grandparents were German immigrants, pioneered ginseng farming. The 8 to 13-year-old boys wanted to get money to raise silver foxes, so they experimented with planting ginseng. They figured out how to germinate seeds in layers of sand buried in boxes for a year, and harvested their first crop in 1912.

The state's rich soil and cold climate are ideal for ginseng farming, and the crop has become so popular that there were 1,400 growers in Marathon County in the late 1990s.

Since 2000, seeds have been sold globally, causing some in the county to stop growing the crop because the price declined.

In 2010, an unexpected heavy snowfall on Mother's Day, followed by a hard frost, devastated more growers, ruining 600,000 pounds of ginseng, valued at about $18 million. The loss rippled through the next four years. But in the last two years, the volume of harvested ginseng has been growing.

Ginseng farmers

The current 170 Wisconsin ginseng farmers are working for "a bright future", said Kaldunski, who is also the vice-president of the Ginseng Board of Wisconsin.

The board is promoting the eagle seal of Wisconsin ginseng and the quality of the roots cultivated in the soil of central Wisconsin rather than those grown from Wisconsin seeds planted elsewhere.

Recently, the board hired a research firm to explore "the wants and needs" of China's growing middle class. "Maybe they like a sweeter ginseng, not a bitter ginseng," said Kaldunski.

While some farmers stopped growing ginseng, others have expanded.

Kirk Baumann, his brother and his father started growing ginseng in 1978. When the price dropped in the 2000s, he decided to expand and purchase more seeds and land.

Today, Baumann Farms is the largest ginseng producer in the US, harvesting 200,000 pounds annually. The brothers built a new production facility in 2014, and a dorm next to it with 44 rooms for workers.

Last year, Baumman spent three months on six trips to China, looking for partners to start the family's own brand, Baumann Ginseng.

A contact is in the process of being made, and Baumman hopes to get their branded products on the shelves by September.

"Definitely before the Chinese New Year," he said.Another town in Central Wisconsin also is looking to host their Chinese guests, and if they arrive in September, they will be able to attend the 45th annual Cranberry Festival in Warrens, where a population of 360 swells to more than 100,000 for the event.

Top producer

Wisconsin is the leading producer of cranberries, with more than half of US production. Massachusetts is the second-largest US producer. The state exports 35 percent of its cranberries, compared to 5 or 10 percent a decade ago, and much of the growth in exports has come from China.

Chinese used to consume less than 1 percent of the world's cranberries, and now it's 9 percent, according to Jim Reed, CEO of the Cranberry Growers Cooperative. Reed said coop members are exporting 25 to 30 percent of their dried cranberries to China, and he expects that will increase to 40 percent.

The co-op has 40 growers from the area, most have been family-owned and operated for generations. The co-op invested $23 million in a new production facility last year, plus another $9 million in a giant freezer that houses 33 million pounds of cranberries from last fall.

The farmers used to partner with the Ocean Spray cranberry company, but now with the new facility they are packaging and marketing their own brand, CranGrow.

The co-op is funding an independent study in China on cranberry as a remedy for H. pylori, a type of bacteria that causes stomach infection and is a common problem in China. Results will be announced in the fall.

"Knowing that people all around the world, people in China, are enjoying (our cranberries) makes our family very, very proud," said Nodgi Van-Wychen, a third-generation cranberry grower. "Hopefully, they will enjoy it and become healthier because of our product."

Van-Wychen's grandfather was the first general manager on the marsh in 1903. Her father joined him after returning from World War II. When her father was ready to retire, Van-Wychen quit teaching and they returned to the marsh. Now, her four children and in-laws join them in the marsh.

For every acre of cranberry marsh, seven to 10 acres of support land are needed, which includes a lot of water.

Van-Wychen said that she is excited that the middle class in China is enjoying cranberries. "That means that my grandchildren, which will be the fifth generation, will continue to do the same thing we are doing now on this march," she said.

Reed took their newly-branded dried cranberries to SIAL China 2017, Asia's largest food innovation exhibition in Shanghai in May.

The next chocolate?

Also attending the event was a team from Sartori Cheese, a local artisan cheesemaker that's been around since 1939. At SIAL China, they celebrated Sartori's second anniversary of entering the Chinese market. They took the Black Pepper BellaVitano, which won the grand champion award at the 2017 US Champion Cheese Contest.

Blair Wilson, vice-president of marketing of Sartori Cheese, believes cheese will be the next chocolate. "China has so much potential. We want to be there first," said Wilson.

For Pam Hodgson, a master cheesemaker at Sartori, "there is a sense of place" in every piece of cheese.

"I hope we can share that little piece of Wisconsin with them," she said.

(China Daily USA 06/09/2017 page20)