Sacheon Mayor Park Dongsik Visits Strawberry Farms to Inspect Damage Issues

Comprehensive Inspection of Damage Including Pest Outbreaks Ca to Repeated Heavy Rain, Heatwaves, and Abnormal Climate

Park Dongsik, Mayor of Sacheon City, Gyeongnam, visited strawberry farms struggling with pest and disease outbreaks caused by abnormal weather such as repeated heavy rains and heatwaves to inspect the damage.

Mayor Park said, “I hope that despite the difficulties, perfect management after planting will be ensured to maintain stable strawberry production,” and added, “We will strive to propose projects for establishing a facility greenhouse production base and provide guidance for pest and disease prevention and control.”

Mayor Park Dong-sik is visiting the strawberry seedling damage site in Bonchon-ri, Gonmyeong-myeon to inspect the damage.

The city has about 270 farms producing high-quality strawberries in 129 hectares of facility greenhouses, and among them, strawberries produced in the Gonmyeong-myeon area are recognized for their excellent quality through joint sorting operations.

However, strawberry farms in the Gonmyeong-myeon area are facing difficulties this year due to abnormal weather conditions, resulting in a shortage of healthy strawberry seedlings caused by anthracnose and wilt disease during seedling cultivation.

In particular, although seedling cultivation necessary for planting has been prepared by farms through self-propagation and purchase, it is expected to be difficult to achieve stable harvests due to a lack of surplus seedlings for replanting after removing contaminated water.

Jo Heonrae, President of the Gonmyeong Strawberry Association, said, “The city’s support for pest and disease control chemical costs this year has greatly helped stabilize cultivation. However, since the weather conditions are unfavorable and many diseases have occurred during seedling cultivation, farmers are greatly concerned about planting and future pest control, so we ask for continued interest and support.”