Seoul set to cull 300,000 cows amid price plunge

SEOUL, Jan. 4 (Yonhap) -- South Korea will seek to cull up to 300,000 cows in the next two years while working to boost its beef consumption to help keep prices up, the government said Wednesday. The government will spend 30 billion won (US$26.1 million) this year alone in incentives to farmers who cull female cows of childbearing age, according to the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. The move comes after the average price of a cow weighing 600 kilograms plunged more than 20 percent to about 4.74 million won at the end of last year from 5.95 million won in 2010. An earlier report said each young beef animal was currently traded for less than $10. Many farmers blame the country's growing beef imports and claim imports will again jump significantly when the country implements its free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States. The Korea-U.S. FTA, signed in June 2007, is expected to be implemented in soon following its ratification by the South Korean parliament late last year. The government, however, blamed local farmers and the beef cattle industry for increasing the number of cattle imprudently to "excessive levels," despite repeated warnings. "Farmers get very angry when I speak the truth but the problem is because of an excessive number of cows," Kwon Chan-ho, a ministry official in charge of policies for livestock industry, told a press briefing. "Farmers blame the FTA, but the real cause is the excessive number of cattle," he said, adding the proportion of beef imports in the country's total supplies dropped from 57 percent in 2010 to 55 percent last year, although the sheer amount of imported beef increased slightly. The number of cattle in South Korea more than doubled from 1.4 million head in 2002 to about 3.04 million head at the end of last year. Kwon said the proper number of cattle for South Korea was about 2.5 million. "There are about 1.27 million cows of childbearing age, producing 950,000 calves in 2011 alone when the entire country consumes about 700,000 head of domestically raised cattle," the ministry official said. In addition to culling hundreds of thousands of cattle, the government plans to stage campaigns to help increase the country's beef consumption as meat from the culls will place further downward pressure on prices. The ministry is also in negotiations with related offices to replace half the pork supplies for the country's military with beef, Kwon said. The latest price fluctuation is expected to lead to violent clashes between farmers and the government. The Hanwoo (Korean Beef) Association said it will attempt to deliver some 2,000 head of live cattle to the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae on Thursday in protest of what it calls a government policy failure. (END)