South Korea: Government expands roughage cultivation area and fixes distribution system

The government has decided to expand the cultivation area and improve the distribution system in order to respond to the increased demand for forage and to resolve the imbalance between regional forage supply and demand. At the recently held ‘2023 1st Forage-related Livestock Cooperative Heads Association regular general meeting’, Seo Jun-han, head of the Livestock Environment and Resources Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, announced the direction of the forage policy containing these contents. According to a survey by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, forage consumption increased by 21% from 4,441,000 tons in 2018 to 5,377,000 tons in 2022. Although the domestic self-sufficiency rate reaches 82.7%, high-quality forages such as timothy, ryegrass, and alfalfa are still highly dependent on imports. The government recognizes that it is necessary to expand the domestic production base because imports are greatly affected by exchange ...