Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Gorgias]

I doubt too many will care, but Korea, in my Canadian Prairies opinion, is in need of an agricultural revolution. Having been throught the country-side many times now, I am shocked that 1) a lot of farming is done by hand, even rice; and 2) that farms are so very small. In the US there are Kellog's farms as big as Kyeonggi-Do, and in Canada, there are McCain's farms of about the same size. Rice is expensive in Korea, and produce SHOCKING!!!!!!!!!!

Korea is going through the same growing pains that Canada and the States did ten and twenty years ago (and Europe is going through now). In time, unless the farmers get the upper hand, the "small-time farmers" will be bought out by the "big-time farmers" who will inturn become or be be bought out by the corporations.

Korea ought to let this process occur. Yes, "a way of life" will be lost, however, Korea needs a) mechanization of agricultural production, and b) large scale farmers. These two go hand-in-hand: the farmer with a quarter hectare of rice can obviously not afford to purchase a quarter billion won rice thresher or combine. For a country so adept at mass-production, the agricultural system is 19th century.

For the sake of Korean children (and English teachers), President Rho, please institute a policy of massive agricultural reform!

[Cedar]

For crying out loud. Educate yourself before you post such drivel.

---hint--- they keep trying to reform in many ways, but farming is a powerful lobby. President Noh would LOVE to institute a trillion reforms, but uh, it's a democracy. Also, the biggest impetus on agricultural reforms now is the WTO agreements, even Noh would rather wriggle out of some of the ruckus this is stirring up!

---another hint--- Canada can have large farms cause they have large pieces of contiguous land without elevation gains and losses allover.

----one last hint---- rice farming is wet farming and doesn't work the way the wheat and corn you are used to works.

I freaking hate it when hagwon jockeys try to say they know the way to change all of Korea for the better before they've even learned the complexity of the issue.

[Swiss James]

really? That Grapes Of Wrath book didn't really paint a rosy picture of the big farms- and isn't mass farming in China part of the reason we get yellow dust storms every year?

I've never heard anyone say it's a good idea before

[Gorgias]

@Cedar, whoa Cujo, down boy. Educate yourself.

---hint---Rice harvesting is an almost identicle process to wheat, flax, canola or any other grain harvesting. Planting is different, but mechanizable none the less. Click here to see some cool pictures of combines, and rice combines produced by International Harvester.

---another hint---Contiguous land is not super important, as it is actually possible for a reaper or bailer to drive from one valley to the next. The Korean country-side has a super infrastructure of highways and irrigation that are already perfectly suited to "big-time" agricultural operations. Further more, almost the entire western half of South Korea from Kyeonggi to Jeolla is fairly topographically level.

----one last hint----Korea has the sort of deep rooted culture and pride that, say, France has, but the the sort of market driven internal economy that America has; if or no Korea will go one way or the other will be interesting to see. Hopefully, for the sake of those who do not want to pay just about five dollars for a pear, Korea will follow the latter path and avoid succumbing to the romanticism and frankly: farmer-terrorists as France has.

I'm not speading soap and Christianity, obviously the complexities of agricultural reform in Korea are to some degree beyond me, none the less, having spent about twenty-five years on and around farms, and a few years in Korea and her country side, I feel I'm at least semi-entitled to note my observations on the topic.

Sorry if my caps and hyperbole drew you, @Cedar, to post such drivel on a topic you clearly have zero education about.

@Swiss James, big farms are not all rosy, and the migrant workers they inevitably employ do often suffer a hard lot. The yellow dust, so I've heard, is from the Gobi desert, and is as old as time, so is probably not closely related to modern Chinese agriculteral practices. At any rate, thanks for your level headed in-put.

[dogbert]

Large-scale rice cultivation is the norm in the U.S.

[ed4444]

I think the open market agricultural debate is a little more complex than explained above.

You couldn't realistically apply the economics of large scale North American farms to Korea.

I do think Korean farming is in dire need of reform however.

I think a total opening of the market would finish off a lot of Korean farmers. This would not be good for the economy.

Probably the best way forward would be free trade agreements based on selected produce or selected regions/countries.

For example opening the market to Thai or American rice would be a disaster while opening up to foreign fruit exporters would be a big help.

[Cedar]

[jaganath69]

I'm all for opening the market. I'm sick of paying four bucks a kilo for rice here.

[Ya-ta Boy]

The point about romanticism is well taken. There is a lot of it here. I'd say two out of three Koreans I know say they want to live on a farm, but they are not interested in doing that kind of work. The little villages out here where I live are nearly void of young people. My high school is two stories, but there is only one classroom used upstairs. The rest are empty. We only have 118 students in school and it takes about a dozen villages to supply that many kids.

Specialization is part of the answer. So is larger farms which require fewer workers. Korea produces a huge surplus of rice but the price is kept artificially high to subsidize the farmers. There are a lot of possibilities between postage stamp-size farms and farms the size of counties. It is not an either/or choice as some want to present it.

Last point. Each year hundreds, maybe a couple of thousand, foreign-born women are brought in to marry the farmers because most Korean women will no longer consider a farming life.

[periwinkle]

[jaganath69]

[hypnotist]

[jaganath69]

[Gorgias]

[fidel]