Climate change and farming

By Kim Sun-ae

Every morning, my family and I eat apples. Every Wednesday, an apple seller comes to our neighborhood. His apples are crisp and sweet, so I sometimes buy them. Cutting red apples each morning, I feel grateful to all beings and things that enabled the apples to grow, including farmers, bees, the sun, the soil and rain.

Recently, I read an article about Ma Yong-un, an apple grower in Hamyang-gun, South Gyeongsang Province. He talked about the problems for farmers as a result of climate change. It must be very difficult for farmers to deal with unpredictable weather phenomena which result from global warming. The warmer our planet gets, the more powerful typhoons are likely to become. Typhoons cause great damage to apple orchards by making apples fall from the trees prematurely.

The climate crisis has affected people all over the world, but farmers are one of the groups who especially have had difficulty in responding to this problem. Fields and paddies are farmers' workplaces, so even though summers have been getting hotter and hotter, they have no choice but to work outdoors. Extreme weather events such as heat waves, typhoons and droughts severely damage agricultural production.

Climate change may lead to food crises. As well as pesticide use and urbanization, global warming is one of the reasons for decreasing bee numbers. Experts say that the number of bees is declining because they can't rapidly adapt to the changing ecosystems. Not only in Korea, but also around the world, the ecosystems that support bees are being destroyed ― and have been for at least the last 10 years.

Bees pollinate many crops, so if they disappear, it will be difficult or impossible to grow the nuts, vegetables and fruits, including apples, which are dependent on them as pollinators. In this case, food prices could soar.

Moreover, because most of the foods that Koreans eat are imported, if food exporters do not products to ship due to the climate crisis, Korea may face food shortages.

This summer, from time to time, I cooked risotto and pasta with red cherry tomatoes and green chilies that my family and I grew in our small plot of land. We also cooked and enjoyed various meals using fresh potatoes, cucumbers, eggplant and perilla leaves that we harvested.

If every person could have a little house and a small area of land to grow vegetables for themselves and their family, the more these people will have less to worry about. We can live without luxuries, but we all need food every day. If we don't have to worry about our survival, our hearts will be lighter and our lives will be happier. On the stems of the beans that we are growing, light purple flowers are blooming.

There is not much time left to minimize damage resulting from global warming. It is a big challenge, but I believe that if all of us ― individuals, civic groups, companies, governments and international organizations ― work together to cut greenhouse gas emissions, we can achieve this goal.

Kim Sun-ae (blog.naver.com/dancinglf) wrote "Old Potato, New Potato" and translated "Little Lord Fauntleroy."