(Jeonju=Yonhap News) Reporter Im Chae-doo = The Korea Rural Community Corporation's Saemangeum Project Team has faced backlash from agricultural product producers after announcing it will allow 'fertilizers' in the Saemangeum agricultural land.
According to a Yonhap News investigation on the 16th, the Rural Community Corporation announced through a press release on the 12th that it has signed farming contracts for 5,288 hectares of agricultural land.
In this land, 122 agricultural corporations from Gunsan, Gimje, and Buan will cultivate wheat, soybeans, and corn for 1-10 years.
The Rural Community Corporation also conveyed that it will establish environmental management obligations and only allow fertilizers specified in the Fertilizer Management Act.
The intention is to prepare guidelines to prevent environmental pollution in the reclaimed land and pay attention to preventing agricultural non-point source pollution.
However, agricultural product groups view the fertilizer mentioned by the Rural Community Corporation as a "3rd-grade chemical compost (slow-release fertilizer)" and have declared a "resolute opposition".
The Korea Certified Agricultural Products Producers Association issued a statement emphasizing "great dissatisfaction with the very idea of allowing chemical fertilizers that cannot achieve eco-friendly agriculture, despite securing land that could become fertile ground".
The group added that "(the slow-release) chemical fertilizers gradually dissolve over a long period and become the main culprit of water and environmental pollution" and that "if water quality deteriorates, algal blooms will occur, rendering Saemangeum uncultivable".
They further stated that "the Lee Jae-myung government must reform such institutions that aim to develop fertile land through non-eco-friendly organic farming methods" and that "eco-friendly agricultural policies are the responsibility of the new government".
doo@yna.co.kr