대한민국 쌀 인사이트

[By Song Hae-chang, Korea Farmers and Fishermen's News] The Nonghyup Central Association Chungnam-Sejong Regional Headquarters conducted a breakfast-eating campaign on the 10th at Gongju Girls' Middle School. Jung Hae-woong, head of the Nonghyup Chungnam-Sejong headquarters, local Gongju agricultural cooperative leaders, and officials from the Gongju City Youth Counseling and Welfare Center distributed rice cakes, sweet rice drink, and breakfast sets to students, encouraging them to eat breakfast. They also emphasized the importance of forming healthy eating habits through breakfast and requested interest in local agricultural products. Jung Hae-woong, head of the Nonghyup Chungnam-Sejong headquarters, stated, "Eating breakfast is greatly beneficial to teenagers' health" and added, "We will continue to conduct related campaigns in cooperation with various institutions." Gongju = Reporter Song Hae-chang

As media reports about rice prices soaring continue to emerge, the agricultural sector strongly pushed back, claiming these were exaggerated reports far removed from the actual field conditions. They argued that the price recovery was being overly inflated due to the base effect, merely stoking consumer anxiety. On the 8th, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs directly refuted the Korea Economic Daily's article titled "Boomerang Effect of Government Rice Price Intervention... May Reach 100,000 Won Next Month" by issuing an explanatory statement, calling it "a report contrary to the facts." The report claimed that the government had excessively purchased rice to avoid the burden of last year's Grain Management Act revision, which led to a sharp price increase in the distribution process.

The Korea East-West Power Labor Union (Central Committee Chair Kim Seong-gwan) and 35 branch committee chairs visited Seokgok Agricultural Cooperative (Chairman Han Seung-jun) in Gokseong County on the 10th and spent time exchanging views. The delegation toured Seokgok Agricultural Cooperative and the local Baekse Rice Mill, listening to explanations about the cooperative's key projects and local agricultural product processing status while directly experiencing the site. Subsequently, the two organizations discussed mutual development strategies for local agriculture and the energy industry, taking the large-scale pumped storage power plant planned for Jukgok-myeon as an opportunity. Chairman Han Seung-jun said, "The pumped storage power plant to be built in Jukgok-myeon is expected to become a new growth engine for Gokseong's economic revitalization."