'Compensation Only If Crop Sunlight Damage Exceeds 70%'... Noseonghwan, Gyeongbuk Provincial Assembly Member, "Significantly Lower Insurance Payout Criteria"

Gyeongbuk Provincial Council Urges in 5-Minute Speech

"Gyeongbuk Province Must Take the Lead in Improvement"

Gyeongbuk Provincial Council member Noh Seong-hwan (People Power Party·Goryeong) strongly urged the Gyeongbuk provincial government to actively step in so that farmers in the Gyeongbuk region, who suffered significant damage due to insufficient sunlight, can receive proper compensation through realistic improvements to crop disaster insurance during his 5-minute free speech at the plenary session of the extraordinary meeting held on the 3rd.

In his speech at the plenary session, Councilor Noh pointed out the unfairness of the current terms and conditions of crop disaster insurance related to sunlight damage compensation and highlighted the reality that disaster insurance is far from providing active compensation to farmers.

Gyeongbuk Provincial Council member Noh Seong-hwan.

Councilor Noh said, “Due to the decrease in sunlight hours earlier this year, the yield of fruit and vegetable crops such as watermelon, strawberry, and oriental melon has been poor, causing severe damage to farmers nationwide. In the Gyeongbuk region, sunlight hours from December last year to February this year were only about 500 hours, the shortest in the past 10 years. On top of that, frequent rain caused poor pollination, stunted growth, and a sharp increase in pest and disease outbreaks in facility-grown fruit and vegetable crops, resulting in greater losses for farmers.”

Councilor Noh added, “Active support should be provided to the affected farmers, but according to the current crop disaster insurance terms, sunlight reduction damage to facility horticultural crops is classified as other disasters, and insurance payouts are only made when the damage rate exceeds 70%, meaning the entire crop cultivation is completely abandoned. As a result, the majority of farmers in the province did not receive compensation.”

Although the Gyeongbuk provincial government has made policy efforts to receive some restoration costs such as pesticide expenses from the government, the compensation for affected farmers is still far from sufficient.

Therefore, Councilor Noh urged the Gyeongbuk provincial government to “actively propose to the government to relax the insurance payout criteria for facility-grown crops from the current damage rate of over 70% to around 30%, and to recognize disasters when sunlight decreases by more than 25% compared to the average, thereby easing the insurance payout standards for facility-grown crops so that farmers in the Gyeongbuk region can receive appropriate insurance payments for sunlight damage.”

Concluding his 5-minute speech, Councilor Noh strongly urged, “As extreme conditions in crop cultivation environments due to climate change such as insufficient sunlight become commonplace, various policy alternatives and support measures should be actively prepared to protect farmers so that those pushed into crisis can focus solely on their livelihoods, free from the threat of natural disasters.”

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