Background : Recently there has been an increasing demand for well-being and health food products. Foreign special and medicinal crops which were not cultivated in Korea before are widely introduced and cultivated in Korea. Therefore, in order to provide the basic information necessary for stable cultivation of the introduced crops, we conducted a survey on the actual condition of cultivation of farms and sought to suggest future work.
Methods and Results : The survey was conducted in cooperation with the Rural Development Administration and local rural organizations in the year 2015 based on cultivation area, number of farms, and cultivation scale. In thes case of Lepdium meyenii and Asimina triloba, we surveyed the status of management technology by stage of cultivation through the field case study of farms. As a result, 14 crops were cultivated in 1,015 farms in 329.9 ha area including, Allium hookeri, Amaranthus blitum, Annona muricata, Asimina triloba, Chenopodium quinoa, Curcuma longa, Glycyrrhiza uralensis, Gynura procumbens, Lepdium meyenii, Moringa oleifera, Ocimum americanum, Psidium guajava, Silybum marianum, and Stachys japonica. The cultivation scale decreased in the order of C. longa, G. uralensis, A. hookeri, P. guajava, L. meyenii, M. oleifera, and A. triloba. Generally, L. meyenii seeds were sown generally in September and the roots were harvested from mid April to early May in the following year after wintering. A. triloba was cultivated using emerged seedlings or grafted seedlings. The emerged seedlings were more 5 years, and the grafted seedlings were more 4 years so that the fruit can be harvested.
Conclusion : In order to stabilize the cultivation of special and medicinal crops introduced from foreign countries, it should be safe and economical in terms of cultivation environment based on domestic cultivation adaptability test, and the use of products and sales channels should be established first. Also, national support and countermeasures for benefit sharing under the Nagoya protocol are needed.