South Korea: Rural Development Administration to enhance competitiveness with unique persimmons

The Rural Development Administration (RDA) announced that it plans to introduce representative Korean persimmon varieties with attractive flavors and textures and enhance industrial competitiveness by meeting consumer tastes and farm demands. Looking at the outlook for major domestic fruit cultivation areas due to climate change, it is expected that the cultivation area of persimmons will continue to increase in inland areas. To respond to this, it is necessary to diversify varieties, but currently, there is a severe bias toward certain varieties. In fact, 79% of Korean persimmons are ‘Buyu’ imported from Japan. To solve this problem, the RDA is working hard to develop and distribute various domestic persimmon varieties that can be differentiated from imported varieties. Representative examples are ‘Gampung’ and ‘Bonghwang’. ‘Gampung’ (developed in 2013), named with the intention of creating a ‘breath of fresh air in the persimmon industry’, has both a crispness and softness ...