Lee calls for farmers to study ways to add values to products

SEOUL, June 21 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Myung-bak said Tuesday that farmers should break away from old-style agriculture and study ways to produce top-quality products and add value to them through additional processing.
"Today's farming shouldn't be done in the way it was done 10, 20 or 30 years ago," Lee said during a lunch meeting with chiefs of regional agricultural technical centers. "As our income has risen, agricultural products should be better in quality and taste."
Lee also said farmers should no longer take agriculture just as primary industry and seek ways to process their products on their own to add value to them. Then agriculture can be a "secondary, tertiary and quaternary industry," he said.
As South Korea has such big markets nearby such as China and Japan, agriculture could be a central industry depending on how good South Korea's products are made, he said.
"If we are able to produce high value-added products, then we don't have to worry even if cheap agricultural products flood in from China," Lee said.


jschang@yna.co.kr