Rice-based crop-animal systems in Korea.
1995
Oh S.M. | Cheon D.W. | Carangal V.R.
Korea used to be largely an agricultural country and Korean farmers raised cattle for plowing the farmland and pulling transport. As the national economy developed, the eating habits have changed. Rice consumption has decreased, but consumption of animal products is increasing. Some problems of the agricultural sector, such as shortage of labor in rural community and high wages, are resulting in more and more idle land and decreasing agricultural farm power. The land area is about 10 million ha, 65.1% of which is forest land 21% is arable land, and 13.8%, others. Of the arable land, 2.09 million ha riceland comprises 57%. The rice produced is 5.5-6.0 million t/yr. There were 1.8 million beef cattle and half a million dairy cattle in 1991. The number of households raising beef cattle has remarkably decreased, but beef cattle has increased. Dairy cattle increased gradually until 1986. But the dairy cattle increased remarkably from 10.2 head per household in 1986 to 16.4 head per household in 1991. In 1992, the area for roughage production which included grassland was 258,000 ha; 2.79 million t of roughage was produced on this land. This production covered only 40% of total demand. The shortage in roughage was filled up by wild grass and rice straw. Data on number of livestock, production, and demand for roughage were forecast to increase. The number of cattle will increase from 2.53 million in 1992 to 3.12 million in 2001, and supply of roughage will increase from 7.0 to 8.6 million t.
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