TOPIC: How do we stop illegal digging out of season?

rootman wrote:

GMCPaul,

You're low balling the green market. In some areas in Ky. it went for $14 an ounce or $224 a lb.
On average I think everyone has agreed 3.25 to 1 ratio green to dry depending on time it was dug.
So your 14.5 times 3.25 =47.125 lbs. green times 224=$10,556
Now, I know I'm figuring on the high side. On the other hand I really think the green market is really taking off and will bring better prices every year even to the point dry will be undesirable. Already what's left from the green and has been dried is hurting the dry prices.

rootman wrote:

GMCPaul,

You're low balling the green market. In some areas in Ky. it went for $14 an ounce or $224 a lb.
On average I think everyone has agreed 3.25 to 1 ratio green to dry depending on time it was dug.
So your 14.5 times 3.25 =47.125 lbs. green times 224=$10,556
Now, I know I'm figuring on the high side. On the other hand I really think the green market is really taking off and will bring better prices every year even to the point dry will be undesirable. Already what's left from the green and has been dried is hurting the dry prices.

I'm in Indiana so I'm not going to get Kentucky prices. The LOCAL buyers were paying $135-$150 per lbs green in the month of Sept. here. My son & I dug EXACTLY 20194 grams wet divided by 28.350 grams to the ounce =712.310405643739 ounces divided by 16 = 44.51 lbs X $150= $6676.50
44.51 divided by 3 = 14.83 lbs
Our ACTUAL finished dried weight is6564 grams = 231.53 ounces = 14.47 lbs
14.47 X $700 lbs = 10,129.00
So even though KY may have been higher in your area I'm not in KY, and here in Indiana I may have been able to travel 1.5-2 hours 1 way = 3-4 hours round trip to net another $15-$25lbs but that's a lot of time that would need spent every few days along with gas to recoup the greater price. But still selling at those prices I would have lost money based upon current prices.
REQUIRING a digger to sell green root only would in no way benefit a digger but would almost if not everytime BENEFIT greatly for a buyer. Because you know out of the 20 years average on what ginseng opens for and the final high dried price you're coming out ahead every time but 1 year in those 20 years.
Also it would be a FAR GREATER incentive for the Koreans & Chinese to show ZERO interest in the root until after it could no longer be harvested. Thus forcing the American buyers to be limited to buying for the first 45 days based on their individual capital they have available to purchase root with since there's ZERO Interest from their buyers for the root they are buying so they can't sell it to get more cash to buy more and you the American buyer since you have ZERO feedback from your buyer you have to make a Hopeful guess on what they will pay making you want to be tighter on your price.
So by making it a green only market you've given unbelievable control on the price paid by the foreign buyers thus enabling them to control market prices even better than they can already and you've given our local buyers far greater control over the diggers as we can no longer hold back on our root until we see a improvement in market prices.
WIN FOR YOU!! WIN FOR THE CINESE & KOREAN BUYERS, BIG TIME LOSS FOR THE AMERICAN DIGGER.
The green only scenario would also allow the local buyers to form cooperatives where everyone agrees to only buy at a certain pric3e point and all root is pooled then they as a cooperative have greater leverage negotiating the final dried with the foreign buyers.
If it reaches that point I guess we as private land owners should reverse things by leaving the root in the ground and when we are ready call out the buyer to come inspect our property and offer bids on the available root we'll allow harvested and then you the buyer can go in and dig what I agree to sell to you.
Rootman if you can't honestly see that the above would happen then your really naïve, but from my experience most buyers are rather Sharp witted so I have to assume you've come up with this easy answer in your opinion because it will only be a POSTITIVE FOR YOUR PROFITS.

Im thinking different I think the green market shouldnt be able to sell until the same time as the dry koreans buy most of the fresh other asians buy most of the dry past few years koreans have bought more and more of the old and select ginseng fresh leaving the other behind for everyone else now they have the leftovers and cant sell it thats 90% of why the market for dry has been weak this year now dealers whom are normaly backed by overseas buyers are wondering why they wont send them any money this year its because you sold all the best fresh to someone else then screwed them over with the scrap most of the final consumers dont use fresh any way so why in the world should there be fresh only sells?the problems that are making ginseng rarer are multiple and differnt one area to the next hard work, education, and common sense are the only solution to the long term viabilty of ginseng not rash law changes that do more harm then good .

Okay, I'm seeing everyone's point of view and truly understand but still what do we do with illegal diggers and rogue buyers. I'm still trying to figure out how we can insure in season digging.

rootman wrote:

Okay, I'm seeing everyone's point of view and truly understand but still what do we do with illegal diggers and rogue buyers. I'm still trying to figure out how we can insure in season digging.

I don't know maybe make the first time offences to have fines 10times minimum the value of ginseng confiscated or $10,000.00 which ever is higher, along with restitution to the landowner if trespassing at minimum of 10 times ginsengs value make the 1st time offense punishable by up to a year rather than weeks or months in some states. For 2nd time offenses double up the penalties at minimum and have a minimum mandatory sentence. Habitual offenders stricter minimum's and loss of ability to ever harvest, sell, or buy ginseng.
While were make things harder lets also look at poorly made laws like then look into making changes to the certification process so that anyone in any state can get it certified, buyers as normal and diggers required to pay a administrative fee for the additional time it takes your conservation officers to do this.
Drop the requirement that you have to have separate multiple export license's for every year of ginseng that you wish to export as its ridiculous that if you want to export root dug this year, last year, and the year before that you need to buy 3 export licenses for each separate year. Make it so 1 license can export ANY years ginseng instead because come on they already have each years total harvest #'s from the certification process so what difference does it make to them how much of each years harvest leaves the USA and if it matters for some obscure reason then place a spot on the individual export certificates to state you are exporting X amount of this years harvest, X amount of last years, and X amount of any other year.
Then if you want strict harvest limit quotas on Federal & State lands no problem they are the PUBLICS lands and not everyone's a responsible digger so they do need managed for future generations but once this is done correctly sustainable harvests should increase so review of those quotas should be a part of it. BUT no private land harvest quotas because if a land owner is stupid enough to strip their land of EVERY ginseng plant that's mature just to get maximum money a given year it should be their RIGHT as it is now.
If land is to be stripped entirely of woods and used for another purpose in the future then it should be legal to remove all immature plants for transplanting and all mature plants for sales or transplanting NO MATTER if its private or public land and this should be allowed to be done at any time of year because its a waste to let it be be legal to destroy the ginseng habitat for a area permanently without allowing it to also be legal to remove the plants in that area where the habitat is to be destroyed no matter what time of the year it is. Because now if a areas gonna get stripped permanently and they start in May every plant is PERMANENTLY DESTROYED for no reason other than its illegal. BUT you legally allow it to be destroyed instead now. Just how stupid is that???
The FED's should step up and make it a export requirement that NO ginseng root shall be exported from the USA that is less than 10 years of age rather than 5 in my opinion. Then this STUPID rule in some states that require a plant to be a 3 prong or larger before its legal to be harvested should be dumped. Indiana got it right in there definition I feel ( except for minimum year they have as 5 it should be 10 )
Indiana law states the following
2.To harvest legally, a ginseng plant must have: at least 3 prongs and a flowering or fruiting stalk, or at least 4 internodes on the rhizome.
Because I know from experience a 40 year old plant can have 1, 2, 3, 4 or more prongs so make it so the laws in all states go by # of internodes and not how many prongs the plant is.
The original framers of these laws had good intentions but they FAILED to foresee some of them actually cause detrimental side effects to sound sustainability and free market principle's.
So in my opinion the laws we have in effect are actually a good start they just need fine tuned and they should as a requirement be subject to regular review.

Wow. is right... All wound up....

Good conversations here, however we should take it down a notch... no point in \"flaming\" anyone on an electronic medium.

The problem with relying on stricter punishments for lawbreakers is that they only get punished if they get caught. I'd wager that you only hear about or see 1 out of 10 illegal diggers / trespassers right now. I agree with your idea to up the charges on criminals, but I think that needs to be combined with some other factors to actually stop illegal digging/buying completely.

It's unrealistic, but the only way I can see the green only theory working would be if all states held consistent pricing so Maine through Wisconsin through Georgia was always the same. Then, you would also need the entire year buying rate pre-determined and held all season long. This way there is no incentive to hold your root longer waiting for a better price. Logistically, there is no way that could ever happen. Seng quality varies from location to location, different diggers dig better or worse, seng up north matures and drops away a month earlier than the southern states.

I don't have any real good ideas that don't have an equal number of downsides. But I enjoy reading what all your opinions are.

All the laws in the world will be for not if you have dealers willing to buy illegal root. If someone has the money someone will provide a product, the more difficult the better. The drug trade is proof of that. Regulation obviously has to happen on the level with the dealer. There are many fewer of them than diggers. Setting prong or node limits is myopic, it doesn't keep up with the market and doesn't guarantee quality root.

One simple solution (I know the dealers on here won't like it) is to simply limit the amount of root the dealer can export and actually enforce it. This would be way easier than catching poachers in the woods and even more effective. Dealers would have to select only quality root to get the best price per weight. The young low priced root would be ignored. People could dig it, but good luck selling it. Once people realize they can't sell the root they won't dig it.

Limits on export weights or limits on how much dealers could buy only spells bad news for diggers. Local dealers work on small margins usually 10to15% exporters work on even smaller margins only 3 to 5% with limits on weight dealers would have no choice but to pay the diggers less per lb . That's the only way to stay in business .As much as we would like to no one can work for free. We want it to be profitable for digger to dig but has to be profitable for dealers to buy or no one would bother.why would we risk hundreds of thousands of our personal dollars for no return

Whether the price would go up or down for the digger would depend on what limit was set. I never mentioned anything about better prices, just an effective way to control illegal diggers. I have a feeling that prices would go up actually because supply would go down. It's the law of supply and demand, so at the end of the day everyone would probably be selling less root at higher prices. Though overall I think everyone would be making less money because the demand for cheap wild root in China would be completely unmet. So yeah it'd be bad for everyone top to bottom.

I'm actually the sort of person who thinks the fewer laws are better than more. So don't think that anything I said I think should be done.

I think a lot of people are thinking it's the licensed dealer buying out of season.
This is totally wrong. It's rogue buyers with money buying all summer for half price. This has become an epidemic far greater than you realize.I'd say every county in Ky. has at least six or more illegal rogue buyers. Now, How do they sell it. During legal season they can divide it up among family members and their cronies and go from dealer to dealer in different counties or maybe even across state lines claiming they are the harvester.
So how do you control this?