Government Settles Bill to Reduce Purchase Price of Autumn Harvest Grain

The government bill reducing the purchase price of autumn-harvest grain by four percent compared to last year has finally been settled.

The government decided in a Cabinet council on May 11 on the “2004 Autumn Harvest Grain Purchase Plan” proposed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and disclosed it would plan to get final approval from the 17th National Assembly slated for early next month.

According to the purchase bill passed this day, this year’s purchase price will be 161,010 won per 80 kg of first class rice, which is lower by four percent on average compared to last year. The total amount of rice purchase is 744,000 tons (5.16 million som), which is less by one percent compared to last year. This bill had been presented to the Cabinet council on May 4, but was deferred by some Cabinet members, who proposed that it should examine further on the farmers’ income preservation plan.

Park Hae-sang, assistant vice-minister of the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry, said that “since the bill was passed, the government will plan to enter into a purchase contract with rice farmers from the middle of this month to pay in advance the sixty percent of the total purchase price to help farmers secure farming funds in the spring.”

The grain purchase price is drafted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry on the basis of the proposal of the Grain Circulation Committee, an advisory organ of the Agriculture Ministry. This draft is then sent to the Cabinet council to become a government bill. Finally, it will come into effect when approved in the National Assembly.

Last year, the government sent a bill planning to reduce the purchase price by two percent to the National Assembly for the first time since the introduction of the purchase system in 1948, but the price was frozen in the process of deliberation of the bill.

Jin-Hup Song jinhup@donga.com