Lee Won-taek "NongHyup's Contract Farming Rate Decreases Every Year... Measures Needed"

Only 12.6% Range for 18 Items
Garlic Down 22.7%P Compared to 3 Years Ago

The contract farming project for 18 items including green onions and garlic, promoted by NongHyup, has been declining for the third consecutive year.

According to the national audit data submitted by Lee Won-taek, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea (Jeonbuk Gunsan·Gimje·Buan), to the NongHyup Central Association on the 18th, the overall contract farming rate for NongHyup's contract farming project this year is 12.6%. This is a 2 percentage point decrease from 14.6% in 2021.

Rep. Lee Won-taek

Some items with a significant drop in contract farming rates include green onions and garlic. The contract farming rate for green onions this year is 14.4%, down 19 percentage points from 33.4% in 2021. Garlic's contract farming rate decreased by 22.7 percentage points from 39.8% in 2021 to 17.1% this year.

Among the 18 items this year, the item with the highest contract farming rate is carrots at around 29%. Next are chili peppers at 22.8%, pears at 22%, onions at 17.3%, garlic at 17.1%, potatoes at 15.5%, green onions at 14.4%, and napa cabbage at 10.9%. Items such as citrus (1.7%), eggplants (2.7%), pumpkins (3.1%), and persimmons (4%) have contract farming rates below 5%.

Meanwhile, the market share of the garlic processing business directly promoted by NongHyup is also struggling. 92% of domestic raw garlic is distributed to peeled garlic factories. NongHyup's processing market share for peeled garlic is only about 7%, with 18 out of a total of 260 processing factories including private ones.

Additionally, the number of garlic contract farms under NongHyup decreased by 8.7%, from 11,557 farms in 2019 to 10,546 farms last year. The sales volume increased by only 5.5% over five years, from 7,743 tons in 2019 to 8,190 tons last year.

Representative Lee said, "NongHyup must increase the contract farming rate to stabilize the supply and demand of horticultural products and secure farmers' income." He added, "To this end, the NongHyup Central Association should actively take the lead and support the construction of additional factories to revitalize the stagnant NongHyup garlic processing business."