SEOUL, March 18 (Korea Bizwire) – The head of South Korea’s food agency has announced that the country will run designated slaughterhouses for chickens and cattle based on halal standards. Minister Lee Dong-pil of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said at a Cabinet meeting presided by President Park Geun-hye on March 17 that his ministry [...]
SEOUL, March 13 (Korea Bizwire) — The Rural Development Administration (RDA) has developed an incredibly fast and low-cost quality evaluation technology for grass forages using Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIS), according to a statement on March 12. The current evaluation process usually takes 3 to 5 days, while it only takes 5 minutes with the newly developed NIS [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 25 (Korea Bizwire) — Korean companies afforested a total of 43,182 ha in eight countries last year. According to the Korea Forest Service’s report on February 24, these companies have contributed to reforestation in Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, the Solomon Islands, New Zealand, Paraguay and Uruguay. The 43,182 ha figure was an increase of 23 [...]
JINCHEON, Korea, Feb. 16 (Korea Bizwire) – Frustration against the factory farms of large-sized livestock raising and distribution companies is growing among local farmers following the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. According to officials from Jeungpyeong and Jincheon counties in North Chucheong Province, local farmers are asking for the withdrawal of factory farms run by large companies, as [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 15 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea has suspended quarantine inspections of Canadian beef after the major exporter confirmed its first case of mad cow disease since 2011, the agriculture ministry here said Sunday. The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said it has stopped quarantine inspections of Canadian beef, which began Friday [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 9 (Korea Bizwire) – The number of individuals returning to Jeju to take up farming is skyrocketing due to a lack of jobs in urban areas, the retirement of baby boomers, and other social factors, including people’s longing for pastoral lives. According to the Jeju Self-Governing Provincial Office, the number of individuals starting up [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 7 (Korea Bizwire) – Three more cases of foot-and-mouth (FMD) disease have been confirmed in South Korea, raising worries that the animal disease keeps spreading in the country, government officials said Saturday. One FMD case was confirmed at a cow farm in Icheon, 80 kilometers west of Seoul, said the officials from the [...]
BEIJING, Feb. 4 (Korea Bizwire) – China’s commerce ministry said Wednesday that it is “highly concerned” about a recent rejection of some Chinese garlic imports by South Korea, asking Seoul to properly handle the trade dispute. South Korea’s state-run Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corp. returned about 2,200 tons of garlic to Lanling County in [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 3 (Korea Bizwire) – The Protecting Korea Project, a Korean NGO established to secure food security for Korea and solve world famine and poverty through organic farming in overseas lands, has been also leading an unprecedentedly massive organic farming project in Brazil. About 30 young Koreans are developing the 119 sq km organic farm [...]
“The central and local governments are focusing on disinfection and preventive measures while blaming the avian flu on migratory birds. However, the fact is that infectious diseases such as avian flu cannot be prevented without any improvement in their breeding environment enhancing their welfare. The governments just ignore the fact.” “Milder forms of bird flu [...]