Song Miryeong Visits Garak Wholesale Market "Daily Focus on Agricultural Supply and Price Monitoring"

Inspection of Fruit and Vegetable Import Volumes and Trade Trends
Meeting with Wholesale Market Corporations and Intermediate Wholesalers

Song Miryeong, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, visited Garak Market in Seoul on the 12th to check the wholesale market inflow status and wholesale prices of major fruits such as apples and pears, and held a meeting with wholesale market corporations and intermediate wholesalers, the distribution entities of the wholesale market.

Agricultural wholesale markets handle 52% of the nationwide fruit and vegetable production, playing a very important role in supplying food to the public. Currently, 32 public agricultural wholesale markets are operating nationwide.

Song Mi-ryeong, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (center), is visiting Garak Market in Seoul on the 12th to check the wholesale market inflow status and wholesale prices of major fruits.

On that day, Minister Song observed the auction of apples and pears and emphasized, "To stabilize agricultural product prices, we have been operating an emergency supply stabilization task force since the 6th, and we are intensively monitoring the supply and price situation of agricultural products daily."

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs plans to lower consumer-perceived prices by supporting 20.4 billion KRW in producer delivery prices and 23 billion KRW in discount support focusing on fruits and vegetables until April, before the full-scale shipment of substitute fruits. In addition, the application of tariff quotas on fruits will be expanded (from 6 items to 8), and prices of oranges and bananas will be lowered through direct imports by the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation.

Along with this, since January this year, the Ministry has been operating the 'Fruit Tree Growth Management Council' with the Rural Development Administration, local governments, and producer organizations to strengthen monitoring of production areas according to weather and growth conditions. Furthermore, they are making thorough efforts in managing crop growth in production areas by ▲supporting 3.8 billion KRW for cold damage prevention agents (covering 20,000 hectares, about 40% of apple and pear cultivation areas) ▲supporting installation of disaster prevention facilities on 874 hectares of orchards ▲completing removal of fire blight ulcers and strengthening surveillance of orchards under focused management.

At the meeting with wholesale market corporations and intermediate wholesalers, Minister Song said, "We will further improve agricultural product distribution efficiency by revitalizing the online agricultural product wholesale market (launched on November 30 last year), which has confirmed the effect of reducing distribution costs," and urged, "To ease the burden on the public’s grocery shopping, wholesale market corporations and intermediate wholesalers should strive to fulfill their primary roles of collecting agricultural products from production areas and ensuring smooth wholesale distribution."