Strawberry, Grape, Garlic 'Overseas'... Rural Development Administration Guides New Variety Exports

[Asia Economy Sejong=Reporter Kim Hyewon] #1. The domestic new garlic variety ‘Hongsan’ met a new market called Hong Kong this year. Since garlic is a supply-sensitive item, the export stage was desperately needed rather than the domestic market. The Rural Development Administration (RDA) loaded garlic onto ships applying drying storage and distribution technology considering the characteristics of the Hongsan variety, which has thick skin and high moisture content. The result was good. It was confirmed that people in Hong Kong prefer the unique smell, clove size, and distinctive appearance of Hongsan garlic. Japan has also expressed interest in exporting Hongsan garlic several times.

#2. The new strawberry variety ‘Alta King,’ grown in promising export complexes, faced very unstable production due to immature seedling technology and cultivation techniques for each farm. Pest and disease management was also difficult. The RDA provided technical support such as high-temperature environment management technology for Alta King seedlings, pest and disease monitoring methods, and pesticide usage. Exports increased from 21 tons last year to 40 tons this year, and export value rose from 348 million KRW to 662 million KRW.

This is the result of the RDA’s focus on discovering promising items and providing customized technical support to expand agricultural product exports this year. According to the RDA on the 28th, there were 30 promising export items and 20 export complexes linked to regionally specialized crops this year. The RDA also consulted 1,958 people to solve export field difficulties. Their satisfaction rate was recorded at 84.4%, 2.2 percentage points higher than the previous year.

The RDA first focused on discovering and fostering promising export items to overcome the crisis of market opening. This was to secure momentum to overcome unfavorable export conditions and turn the crisis into an opportunity. This year, promising export items included grape ‘Hongju Seedless’ (Vietnam), strawberry ‘Highberry’ (Thailand), sweet potato ‘Hogammi’ (Singapore), asparagus (Hong Kong), kiwi ‘Haegum’ (Singapore), and persimmon (Vietnam). Haegum, which had relied on the domestic market, started export to Singapore. Premium items capable of high-end branding, such as grape ‘Shine Muscat,’ expanded exports linked to high-end stores in Singapore, outperforming Japanese products.

The RDA also paid attention to cultivating export capabilities through fostering promising export complexes centered on regionally specialized crops in cooperation with provincial agricultural technology centers and providing continuous mid- to long-term technical support. They diagnosed the technical and management levels of promising export complexes and expanded exports by supporting customized technologies reflecting the export destination countries’ item-specific requirements such as quality and safety.

They strengthened regular education and learning support to reduce problems occurring at export farm sites, such as pesticide safety management of export agricultural products. They promoted ‘safe pesticide use’ education targeting farms and management entities exporting vegetables to Japan and cabbage to Taiwan to prevent violations of residual pesticide standards and increased accessibility by combining online education.

Additionally, they developed and commercialized technologies to improve pesticide safety in importing countries for export agricultural products. They revised and distributed 84 guides on safe pesticide use for export agricultural products, reducing cases of export agricultural product customs clearance bans from 33 last year to 11 this year, cutting them by two-thirds.

Another notable achievement was the advancement of ship export technology using Controlled Atmosphere (CA) container storage to reduce logistics costs and solve quality degradation problems of fresh export agricultural products caused by long-distance transportation. Hong Kong and Vietnam ship mixed items such as strawberries, watermelons, Korean melons, and melons together. Depending on the item, CA transport generated profit effects exceeding 1000% compared to air transport.

Next year, they plan to strengthen technical support further with the goal of increasing annual exports by 10% for promising items such as grapes, strawberries, Korean melons, and citrus fruits. For strategic items, the focus is on discovering new varieties, premiumization, and aiming for $100 million export per item, while for promising items, the focus is on developing shelf-life maintenance technologies and nurturing candidate groups.

Beyond items, they will also pursue package export modeling linked to downstream industries (livestock equipment, animal pharmaceuticals, etc.) based on domestic resources (dairy cattle semen) and technologies (feeding and disease management). The goal is to develop two technology export models for future growth industrialization of export agriculture within next year.

Yoon Seonghwan, an instructor at the RDA Export Agriculture Support Division, said, “A strategy of selection and concentration is necessary to drive the agricultural food national policy export target of $15 billion. We will develop a new public-private cooperation model in the technology export field and strengthen integrated services from R&D for strategic and promising items to production base and export commercialization.”

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