WAUSAU, Wis. — TMJ4 News is talking with voters across Wisconsin in a series of reports called the Road to November.
TMJ4's Shannon Sims did the navigating and Charles Benson did the driving as they traveled to Wausau to talk with ginseng farmer, Will Hsu.
WATCH: Ginseng farmer Will Hsu explains why ginseng is a unique plant in Wisconsin and what it takes to grow it in our state.
Shannon: When we talk about Wisconsin, we always think dairy, right? But we are the number one producer of ginseng in the country.
Charles: For all the years, I've been covering politics, and the state of Wisconsin, I've never been to a ginseng farm. I'm really excited about this.
Will Hsu: My dad started Hsu's Ginseng Enterprises in 1974. It's just one of those minor crops that people may have heard of or they know is good or healthy for them. They just don't realize or recognize that it's grown here in Wisconsin.
Shannon: How important is the soil of Wisconsin to Jensen?
Will: Soil is absolutely critical to the development of ginsend in our industry here in central Wisconsin.
Shannon: If I were to give you a list of four things, tell me which one is most important to you. Climate change, immigration, foreign trade, inflation.
Will: I would probably say foreign trade is number one, and immigration is number two, because of our workforce. Inflation is number three because I think inflation is probably related to our foreign trade policy and what we're dealing with (in) immigration. If you don't have sources of labor, and you don't have sources of goods, you're going to have inflation.
Shannon: Is trade relations top of mind for you as a farmer?
Will: Trade relations for the last four or five years have been (at the) top of my mind every day. It's probably the biggest issue that we have as ginseng farmers.
Benson: Is that a political issue for you?
Will: Trade is only political because it's negotiated at the highest levels of government.
Benson: So in the political year, when you hear what's happening at the border, we got to stop things at the border and you're like, wait a minute, come to my farm, and you would get a different perspective?
Will: Immigration is key for us in two different ways. As immigrants ourselves, we are hiring foreign, temporary labor from Mexico to do some of these field jobs, and these are not easy jobs to do. I did it as a kid. The other area that we need immigrants is in our enterprises, our sales side. Our customers, both domestically and internationally, require customer service in Mandarin. So, we actually hire and retain a lot of H1B visa, OPT, and green card applicants or permanent residency applicants who were sponsoring their visa because they have a skill set but we also need their language ability.
Charles: I can't think of any bigger product within the state that has such a big impact on what our relationship with China means.
Shannon: And we just learned from Will that if we aren't in good relations with China, then he doesn't have a business that's thriving.