By Lee Hyo-sik
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However, things have changed rapidly over the past few decades as the nation has become one of the world's 10 largest economies with more than 92 percent of people now residing in cities and engaging in non-agriculture jobs. According to Statistics Korea, agriculture accounted for only 2 percent of Korea's $1.8-trillion gross domestic product in 2021, with 4.3 percent of the country's 51.7 million people, or 2.22 million people, making a living by farming.
Over the years, rice has become less important in Koreans' diet because people consume more meat, vegetables and other crops. Yet, production has not come down in proportion to declining consumption because the government buys hundreds of thousands of tons of rice every year at higher than market prices with taxpayers' money, as politicians are eager to garner farmers' votes. Fewer lawmakers hail from rural areas but they tend to be more vocal about the interests of their constituencies than their peers elected from cities.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs keeps surplus rice in storage to maintain high rice prices artificially by reducing supply in the market. Several years later, the ministry sells rice to food companies at much lower than its value as raw materials for instant noodles and other processed products. Or it sends the crop to third world countries as food aid through the World Food Program and other international relief bodies.
This practice goes against market economy principles and it encourages farmers to keep producing as much rice as they can, thinking that the government will buy their surplus at higher prices, despite falling demand. The ministry plans to spend over 1 trillion won ($701 million) to buy 450,000 tons of surplus rice this year, on top of the tens of millions of dollars it has to spend to store the crop.
However, the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) is pushing to pass a bill mandating the government purchase of all excess rice with public funds. Under the current law, it is at the government's discretion as to whether to purchase excess rice and how much.
The ruling People Power Party and experts including the state-run Korea Rural Economic Institute oppose the DPK's bill, saying it will increase the volume of surplus rice by giving a greater incentive to rice farmers to overproduce and waste larger amounts of taxpayers' money. If farmers do not make money by farming rice, they will stop producing it even if they are told by politicians not to. The farmers will then work on something else that consumers want. This is the way the market economy is supposed to work.
DPK lawmakers and other politicians, who could be viewed as interested in keeping their Assembly seats by maintaining policies that disregard the national interest, should stop this populist move. They should stop deceiving rice farmers by falsely promising that everything will be okay as long as the government comes in and collects their surplus crops, despite falling consumer demand. But a practice like this is not sustainable and will come to an end at some point. When this happens, it will certainly bring about catastrophic results for rice farmers.
For the sake of the farmers, politicians should help policymakers and experts do their jobs to make the country's agricultural industry more competitive and technology-driven. Agriculture Minister Chung Hwang-keun appears to have several viable ideas on how to make rice farming more efficient and sustainable, and how to use taxpayers' money more efficiently.
Chung wants to mobilize more resources to attract young people to settle down in rural areas and engage in smart farming equipped with artificial intelligence and other technologies, producing fruits and vegetables that more consumers demand these days. He also wants to encourage more farmers to cultivate a new breed of rice, which can easily be ground like wheat and used for premium bread, instant noodles and other processed products. This will lead to a fall in the volume of rice production and reduce the nation's grain imports at the same time.
For rice farmers, they should realize they cannot earn a living by producing what consumers don't want and make more efforts to keep up with rapidly changing market conditions. It is easy to do the same thing they have been doing for years, but rice farming should be less of a priority, as Koreans eat less rice but more meat and vegetables. If they continue to depend heavily on government funds, there is no future for them.
The writer is the business desk editor at The Korea Times.
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