▲ Mayor Moon Jung-woo

The keyword of Geumsan County this year is ‘finding growth engine’. The county has introduced 5 core tasks including globalization of ginseng and strengthening agricultural power by allocating $8.3 million budget. The budget is to be used for obtaining GAP certificates, organic fertilizer, shading facility, herb growing field, R&D and technology transfer, networking projects and business support. 

The ‘Cooperative Grading Project’ of the country in particular is expected to secure steady income of farmers through activation of distribution channels for ginseng and through differentiated marketing and branding; the project is received as a model case of the 6th industry of Korea. The GAP certified ginseng is supplied to processers and manufacturers in the local through Geumsan Black Ginseng Co., Ltd. Thanks to this system, the number of in-house farmers are steadily increasing every year. 

To keep the effective management system, the county is working in cooperation with regional ginseng research centers from which the specialists bring up future development and business directions. 

Another advantage of the ‘Cooperative Grading Project’ is that it has built an effective link between the producers and the business management. The project enables them to create synergy effect through effectively embracing the 1st, 2nd and 3rd industries’ organic convergence. 

As a result, Geumsan black ginseng is enjoying a steady increase of sales every year including the export volume which increased by 23% as of December 2018. To spread excellence of Geumsan ginseng, the county participated in PRODEXPO 2019 in Moscow last February and visited Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, for an exchange with a local wasabi organization.