Joo Dong-hwa, 68, a farmer, transplants rice at his rice paddy in Yanggu, Gangwon, yesterday. Due to the unusually low temperature rice transplanting in the country started 10 days later than in recent years. [NEWSIS]
The government said yesterday that it would buy up to 200,000 tons of rice from local farmers after overproduction caused a recent fall in its price. The Agriculture Ministry will purchase next month 100,000 tons of last year's rice harvest and another 100,000 tons later this year. The surplus rice will be held in state reserves and will be sold on the market once the price stabilizes.
Once the purchases are completed, the government rice reserves will amount to more than 900,000 tons, higher than the level recommended for Korea by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. The government has periodically bought rice to stabilize market prices, with the last such action occurring last October.
The government intervention is seen as necessary to prevent the fall in rice prices adversely affecting rural communities.
The problem is seen as a long-term one since the per-capita annual rice consumption by Koreans has fallen for 25 consecutive years from 130.1 kilograms (286.8 pounds) in 1984 to 74 kilograms in 2009.
The pace of decline has accelerated in the last decade, with per-capita rice consumption dropping by more than 20 kilograms in that period.
We have to weigh the cost of buying the rice against the bigger social cost if we left it to the market to decide, said an Agriculture Ministry official who asked for customary anonymity.
With the rice supply constantly outstripping demand, the government said it would offer subsidies of 3 million won ($2,704) for each hectare of farmland that is converted from rice to other crops, such as beans and corn.
The average price of 80-kilogram rice sack sold to rice-processing facilities has steadily fallen from 144,653 won last October to 139,091 won in March. Rice prices normally rise in February as supplies from the autumn harvest fall.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Government to buy surplus rice
Joo Dong-hwa, 68, a farmer, transplants rice at his rice paddy in Yanggu, Gangwon, yesterday. Due to the unusually low temperature rice transplanting in the country started 10 days later than in recent years. [NEWSIS]
The government said yesterday that it would buy up to 200,000 tons of rice from local farmers after overproduction caused a recent fall in its price. The Agriculture Ministry will purchase next month 100,000 tons of last year's rice harvest and another 100,000 tons later this year. The surplus rice will be held in state reserves and will be sold on the market once the price stabilizes.
Once the purchases are completed, the government rice reserves will amount to more than 900,000 tons, higher than the level recommended for Korea by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. The government has periodically bought rice to stabilize market prices, with the last such action occurring last October.
The government intervention is seen as necessary to prevent the fall in rice prices adversely affecting rural communities.
The problem is seen as a long-term one since the per-capita annual rice consumption by Koreans has fallen for 25 consecutive years from 130.1 kilograms (286.8 pounds) in 1984 to 74 kilograms in 2009.
The pace of decline has accelerated in the last decade, with per-capita rice consumption dropping by more than 20 kilograms in that period.
We have to weigh the cost of buying the rice against the bigger social cost if we left it to the market to decide, said an Agriculture Ministry official who asked for customary anonymity.
With the rice supply constantly outstripping demand, the government said it would offer subsidies of 3 million won ($2,704) for each hectare of farmland that is converted from rice to other crops, such as beans and corn.
The average price of 80-kilogram rice sack sold to rice-processing facilities has steadily fallen from 144,653 won last October to 139,091 won in March. Rice prices normally rise in February as supplies from the autumn harvest fall.
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