Sangju Grapes from Gyeongbuk Win Excellence Award at Ministry of Agriculture's 'Korea Representative Fruit Competition'

Mr. Joseongmin from Hwadong-myeon Farm Receives 'Rural Development Administration Commissioner Award' for Camberry Product

The photo shows local farmers and others taking a commemorative photo related to Campbell grapes from Sangju, Gyeongbuk, embarking on their first export route to Southeast Asia in August 2016.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Park Dong-wook] Sangju City, Gyeongbuk Province, announced on the 10th that Sangju grapes won the Excellence Award at the '2020 Korea Representative Fruit Selection Contest,' hosted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and jointly organized by the Korea Fruit Farmers Association and the Korea Forest Service.

The judging panel, composed of experts including officials from the National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service and the Rural Development Administration, selected 46 farms from 115 nationwide fruit and forest product farms that participated in the August contest through external inspections and measurement evaluations (sugar content and hardness). In Sangju City, Mr. Jo Seong-min (53) from Hwadong-myeon received the Rural Development Administration Director's Award for grapes (Campbell Early variety).

The scale of grape cultivation in Sangju reaches 3,060 farms covering 1,845 hectares. Although the number of farms switching to the Shine Muscat variety is increasing, Sangju grapes remain popular for their unique taste and aroma due to decades of accumulated grape cultivation techniques and the highland climate.

This year, continuous monsoon rains for 52 days caused significant occurrences of pests and diseases as well as fruit cracking (alteration), but Sangju City reported that the passion and efforts of farmers toward producing high-quality agricultural products led to this honor.

Mayor Kang Young-seok of Sangju City expressed, "I thank the farmers for their hard work in producing premium fruits despite worsening climate change every year, and we will do our best to support the production of high-quality agricultural products through modernization of production infrastructure in the future."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.