On this Wikipedia the language links what is ginger good for at the top of the page across from the article title. This article is about the plant. Ginger is one of the first spices to have been exported from Asia, arriving in Europe with the spice trade, and was used by ancient Greeks and Romans. Although used in traditional medicine and as a dietary supplement, there is no good evidence that consuming ginger or its extracts has any effect on human health or as a treatment for diseases.

Ginger originated from Maritime Southeast Asia. It is a true cultigen and does not exist in its wild state. Ginger was carried with them in their voyages as canoe plants during the Austronesian expansion, starting from around 5,000 BP. Austronesian languages all the way to Hawaii. From India, it was carried by traders into the Middle East and the Mediterranean by around the 1st century CE.

In it, Confucius was said to eat ginger with every meal. Ginger produces clusters of white and pink flower buds that bloom into yellow flowers. Because of its aesthetic appeal and the adaptation of the plant to warm climates, it is often used as landscaping around subtropical homes. In 2020, global production of ginger was 4.

Nigeria, China, and Nepal also had substantial production. Though it is grown in many areas across the globe, ginger is “among the earliest recorded spices to be cultivated and exported from southwest India”. India holds the seventh position in ginger export worldwide, however is the “largest producer of ginger in the world”. A period of low rainfall prior to growing and well-distributed rainfall during growing are also essential for the ginger to thrive well in the soil. Ginger produced in India is most often farmed through homestead farming. Since most ginger crops are produced on homestead farms, the farm employees are mostly family members or other local members of the community. Gendered roles within ginger farming are distributed quite evenly and fairly.

The size of the seed ginger, called rhizome, is essential to the production of ginger. The larger the rhizome piece, the faster ginger will be produced and therefore the faster it will be sold onto the market. Once the seeds are properly treated, the farmland in which they are to be planted must be thoroughly dug or ploughed by the farmer to break up the soil. The next step is planting the rhizome seed. In India, planting the irrigated ginger crop is usually done in the months between March and June as those months account for the beginning of the monsoon, or rainy season.