Groaning Farmers

Suffering farmers

Some mountainous areas of Chonbuk province suffered severe cold weather damage right before the harvest season. Some 1500 farmers in those areas demonstrated with their trackers on September 3rd demanding that the government designate the areas as a disaster-affected region.

Meanwhile, farmers are striving to stop the spreading of harmful insects, which has been unusually severe this year due to the hazardous weather conditions such as frequent rain and abnormally low temperatures. The scene was a striking contrast with the shining field of rice paddies last year.

Na Gi-joo, a farmer of the affected region, said, “Moths are rapidly spreading around the region bleaching rice leaves. This year, our production will fall by 30 percent. We weren`t even able to spray insecticide due to the frequent rain.”

On the other side of the nation, farmers raising pears are deeply worried over their poor crops this year. Because of the blight causing black spots on pears, they could not generate any quality pears this year before the big holiday season of Chusok.

Lee Sung-jin, the owner of a 13,000 pyong pear farm, said, “Heavy rain fell during the flowering season of April and May, so I gave up on 6000 pyong affected by the blight. Last year, I lost over 100 million won due to the typhoon Lusa. Now this is a second round of suffering for me this year.”

The begetting number of persimmons per 10 acres was 8673, down by 498 from last year and that of apples and pears stood at 7696 and 7166, down by 1122 and 194, respectively.

Peppers and sesame plants also suffered from such severe diseases as pestilence and anthrax. Some 7394 hectares of pepper farms out of the total 19,739 hectares were damaged in Chonnam and Chonbuk region, while Chungnam province expects to see a crop reduction of 20 percent or so this year.

Sea of Anguish

“If the red tide had come a few days later, we could have shipped our fish”, said Lee Jung-woo, the owner of a fish breeding ground at Wando, Chonnam province. The area was washed away by the infamous red tide on September 1st. Lee said, “Some 200,000 flatfishes weighing over 1.5 kilograms were buried under rice paddies with their white abdomens turned over upside down.”

Seven households owning a breeding ground in this province all lost a herd of fish and shells. Villages mourned for the losses.

The Chonnam province estimated that its damages could cost 12.8 billion won with some 1.69 million fish dead from the red tide.

Because schools of fish are dying Kyungnam, Tongyoung and Namhae areas were put under the red tide alert. The regions saw some 1 million won in fish go belly up from August 26th to September 3rd.

Related authorities and fishermen tried to prevent the spreading of the tide by spraying some 81,000 tons of yellow soil around the areas with no avail due to the high density of the hazardous organisms in the tide.