Farmers protest 513% rice tariff
Farmers protest government’s decision to raise rice tariff in downtown Seoul, Thursday. / Yonhap
By Lee Hyo-sik
Rice farmers are protesting the government’s latest decision to impose a 513-percent tariff on imported rice next year, saying that Korea should remain a foreign-rice-free zone.
The tariff is expected to more than offset the price advantages of U.S. and Chinese rice. Farmers compared it to Japan’s 1,000-percent tariff.
The Korean Peasants League (KPL), which represents tens of thousands of rice farmers across the country, said Thursday that the government should stop importing foreign rice altogether, and instead offer concessions in other areas when negotiating with its trade partners.
“Regardless of the tariff rate, we outright oppose the import of foreign rice,” KPL policy chief Lee Jong-hyuk said. “We oppose both ‘tariffication’ and the minimum market access (MMA) quota. Our stance is that Korea should be a foreign-rice-free zone.”
Lee said foreign rice imports under tarrification would wreak havoc on the domestic rice industry.
“If rice farmers go bankrupt, other agricultural sectors will follow suit. Korea then loses its food sovereignty,” he said. “Multinational agricultural firms will control the domestic food industry. Nobody wants this to happen.”
“Our members will hold a series of protest rallies in Seoul and other parts of the country in the coming days,” Lee said.
“We will mobilize all our resources to force the government to scrap its plan to liberalize its rice market through tariffication.”
Some KPL members broke into the National Assembly early Thursday and interrupted a policy consultation meeting between government officials and senior officials in the ruling Saenuri Party.
They threw rice and red pepper powder at meeting participants, chanting slogans indicating that the government should listen to rice farmers and reflect their views in its policies.
The government has decided to notify the World Trade Organization (WTO) that it will set a tariff rate on rice imports at 513 percent.
The WTO members will hold a review over the next three months to decide whether the rate is appropriate.
If there are no objections, Korea will begin importing rice in 2015, imposing a 513 percent tariff.
Policymakers have said they will take various measures to prevent imported rice from being sold as local, as well as extend financial and other support to rice farmers.
During the past 20 years, Korea promised the WTO that it would import a certain amount of rice every year under the MMA program, in exchange for a waiver on rice tariffication.
As a result, Korea is obliged to import 408,700 tons of rice this year, about 10 percent of the country’s annual rice consumption of 4.1 million tons.
The forced imports are already a burden on the country’s rice market, which has seen rice consumption decreasing in recent decades.
To delay the opening of the rice market again, Korea will have to increase the MMA quota again.