[Column] Protect Our Rice, Preserve Our Wheat, and Eat More Our Soybeans

Kim Seong-chan, Director of Tonghapgwa Hope at the Policy Research Institute

South Korea's grain self-sufficiency rate reached 80% in 1970 but fell to 23.3% in 2013 and has remained in the 20% range since then.

The Korea Rural Economic Institute projected that the rice self-sufficiency rate, which was 83.1% in 2010, will continue to decline to 62.6% by 2040 and 47.3% by 2050.

Despite being the second most important food crop, wheat, which is heavily dependent on imports, once had a self-sufficiency rate close to half but has dropped to only 0.8% since the government stopped purchasing it in the 1980s. It is only through the efforts of private organizations such as the Uri Mil Saligi Undong Bonbu (Our Wheat Revival Movement Headquarters) that its legacy has been maintained.

South Korea's grain self-sufficiency rate was 20.2% in 2020, and excluding rice, it is only 2.6%. This places the country among the lowest-ranked of the 34 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Almost no leading advanced countries in the world neglect food self-sufficiency. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Sweden all have food self-sufficiency rates exceeding 100%, and France boasts a food self-sufficiency rate of over 200%. This demonstrates that a strong foundation in food self-sufficiency is essential for building a developed national economy.

The reason the United States has held global hegemony for over a century with the "key to the granary" as its weapon is because it is a food self-sufficient and exporting country.

The only country on Earth with resources, agriculture, and natural foundations comparable to those of the United States is China. The reason China can potentially challenge the United States' sole hegemony in the future is its agricultural industry, and this objective reality is approaching us, making preparation extremely necessary.

We experienced significant social crises such as Japan's semiconductor parts export restrictions in 2019 and the recent urea solution shortage.

At the beginning of 2022, the world's largest coal exporter, Indonesia, announced a sudden ban on coal exports due to domestic supply shortages, causing renewed tension over its repercussions.

What if semiconductor parts and urea solution were food items like rice? It would be a truly horrific scenario that is hard to even imagine.

The world's four major grain majors are the American companies Cargill and ADM, France's Louis Dreyfus, and Argentina's Bunge. They exert influence over global food prices based on their immense financial power and information networks.

Having expanded into feed, milling, sugar refining, shipping, steel, and chemicals, they possess such formidable power that foreign exchange transactions are free and secret accounts can be established.

They conduct transactions through branches worldwide, making it impossible to track orders and destinations. Using satellites to monitor crop conditions by country, they purchase and sell grains from various production areas with enormous capital, reaping huge profits.

They own grain brokerage and shipping companies, controlling the entire distribution process including transportation, processing, handling, loading, allocation, and storage, and they dominate 80% of global grain production.

South Korea, which imports a large amount of agricultural products, experiences repeated "eggflation" phenomena where general prices rise alongside international grain price surges. Grain-producing countries maintain close relationships with grain majors and restrict grain export volumes or impose export bans when production decreases due to abnormal weather or natural disasters.

At this rate, the day may come when it becomes impossible to buy grains even at high prices.

Since the government stopped purchasing in 1984, it took 20 years to achieve nearly 1% self-sufficiency by painstakingly securing a handful of seeds. This is the result of the dedication and sweat of many people achieved despite government policy neglect.

This was possible thanks to the hard work of farming brothers who quietly guarded production sites and took responsibility for producing high-quality grains, as well as the participation and consideration of urban consumers who recognized the value of such dedication and effort.

Barley, for which government purchasing was stopped in 2012, rice that is no longer safe from self-sufficiency, and Korean soybeans that have become hard to find nearby?these agricultural products must not follow the same path as Korean wheat.

We must take Korean wheat as a cautionary example. Otherwise, in 10 years, we may foolishly have to restart movements like the "Uri Ssal Saligi Undong" (Our Rice Revival Movement) and "Uri Bori Saligi Undong" (Our Barley Revival Movement).

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