Kimchi-Making Season Approaches... Napa Cabbage Is 'Priced Like Gold'

Iwon Taek "Government Must Expand Agricultural Product Stockpiles"
"Increase Public Storage Bases and Lease Private Warehouses"

Despite the government releasing a large amount of cabbage stockpiles this year, cabbage prices continued to rise.

According to the National Assembly audit data submitted by Lee Won-taek, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea (Jeonbuk Gunsan·Gimje·Buan), from the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation (aT) on the 22nd, the government released 17,536 tons of domestically produced cabbage from January to August this year, and additionally released 272 tons in September, exhausting all stockpiled quantities.

The initial shipment of 16 tons of Chinese-imported cabbage was brought into the Garak Market in Songpa-gu, Seoul, to stabilize the skyrocketing cabbage prices on the 27th of last month.
Photo by Jo Yongjun jun21@

This year's government release volume exceeded the annual release volume of 16,463 tons in 2022, when price trends were similar. However, the wholesale price per cabbage head soared 48%, from 5,658 won in August to 8,395 won in September. Furthermore, with all government stockpiles depleted, concerns have arisen about weakened responsiveness to stabilizing cabbage prices.

Expanding stockpiles is crucial for stabilizing domestic agricultural product prices, but the average capacity of the 14 stockpile bases operated by the government and aT has decreased. As of this year, the average capacity of stockpile bases was 52,538 tons, a 20% decrease from 65,407 tons in 2021. The average utilization rate, calculated based on hourly capacity, also dropped by 11.3%, from 94.1% in 2021 to 82.8%.

In contrast, the number of private storage warehouses used through contracts when necessary increased by six compared to 2021. The average capacity also rose from 55,486 tons to 97,662 tons.

Rep. Lee stated, "The recent sharp rise in cabbage prices demonstrates how important price stabilization is for major domestic agricultural products," and emphasized, "We need to increase stockpiling of agricultural products with high price volatility by expanding and improving public stockpile bases and increasing the use of private storage warehouses."