[Reporter’s Notebook] Agricultural Products Flocked to Seoul, Farmers Left With No Options

Online Wholesale Market Remains Out of Reach for Individual Farmers
Conditions Vary by Region at National Agricultural Cooperative Federation Processing Centers
Farmers Forced to Sell at Wholesale Markets with No Other Choice
The Core of Reform L

On December 19, I attended a roundtable discussion at the National Assembly titled "Agricultural Product Distribution as Seen by Reporters: One Year Since Namtaeryeong." At the event, reporters shared their experiences covering the "The Weather Is Not to Blame" feature series, as well as their visits to strawberry, apple, and tangerine farms. In addition, various stakeholders-including farmers' associations, consumer groups, wholesale corporation associations, and academia-discussed ways to improve the agricultural product distribution structure, but no single solution was agreed upon. The auction system, often cited as the main cause of heightened price volatility for agricultural products, was found to have both clear advantages and disadvantages. There were also opinions that, since the distribution structures for apples, strawberries, and tangerines differ by item, a more nuanced approach is necessary.

After the roundtable, I revisited the government's ongoing "Agricultural Product Distribution Structure Improvement Plan." To do so, I accessed the "Online Wholesale Market" website, which the government ambitiously announced would be expanded to handle half of all agricultural product transactions. However, a pop-up message appeared stating, "The 2025 direct delivery shipping cost support project has ended due to budget exhaustion." The notice explained that even if applications were submitted within the designated period, support might not be available because the entire budget had already been used.

The online wholesale market is considered a way for farmers to sell directly to consumers. Unlike the traditional distribution process, which requires passing through four stages including the agricultural product wholesale market, products can be sold after just one or two steps, thereby reducing distribution costs. However, from the perspective of small-scale farms, this is often just a "pie in the sky." The burden of covering courier fees, shipping costs, and logistics expenses is significant for individual farms. Farmers can organize joint shipping associations through the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation's Agricultural Product Processing Center (APC) to alleviate costs such as labor and packaging, but in regions where APCs are not organized, even this is difficult. As a result, rather than increasing direct transactions that force them to shoulder these costs, individual farms reluctantly send their products to the Garak Wholesale Market in Seoul.

The agricultural product auction system, introduced in 1976, has been criticized for driving up agricultural product prices due to double logistics costs as goods are shipped nationwide. Moreover, not only supply volume but also demand causes sharp price fluctuations, which is a critical drawback that prevents stable supply of agricultural products. On December 19, the day of the roundtable, an amendment to the "Act on Distribution and Price Stabilization of Agricultural and Fishery Products" (the Agricultural Products Act), which seeks to revise the auction system, was submitted to the National Assembly's plenary session. On the same day, the "Online Wholesale Market Act" (the Act on Promotion of Online Wholesale Transactions of Agricultural and Fishery Products), which establishes an online wholesale market platform and provides government funding, passed the National Assembly's standing committee. However, due to legislative gridlock over contentious bills such as the law to establish a special court for insurrection cases, these bills have not yet been addressed in the plenary session.

Reforming agricultural product distribution is not a simple task. While everyone agrees on the need for "reform," the presence of various stakeholders makes sweeping changes difficult due to strong resistance. What is clear, however, is that the current agricultural product distribution structure leaves farmers with too few options. To give farmers a wider range of transaction channels, the two bills must be passed in the National Assembly's plenary session as soon as possible.