Seed, the green future

By Kim Hong-yang

Farming is one of the most important activities in the world. Where agriculture is strong, industry also shows strength. The U.S. and France are typical examples of this: the former has been fully backing agriculture, while the latter gains natural benefits from a mild climate with a fruitful land.

Agriculture itself has a great ripple effect. It starts from sowing and harvesting to processing and production, then gradually moves to marketing, experiencing and education and makes further steps in research and finally develops into a high value added industry.

Public institutions and corporations in Korea and the Netherlands signed numerous memoranda of understanding last year to develop a creative agricultural system and to protect seeds and plant breeds. When it comes to the Netherlands, it has many famous products such as Gouda cheese, and wooden clogs, tulips and masters of art such as Rembrandt and Vermeer. This small land has yet to discover all its potential.

The founding member of the EU, located in Western Europe and flanked by the North Sea, has the largest port in Europe with big and small canals along the country that people can glide over in winter on skates.

The Netherlands has served as a transportation and logistics hub thanks to its strategic location in Europe. It is notorious for dreadfully strong winds, but the Dutch have harnessed the winds using windmills.

As for a higher value added industry in agriculture, the Netherlands has become one of the countries that show strength in preserving seeds and conducting cultivation on new varieties of crops. The seeds industry dates back to the 1600s.

At that time, because tulips were a symbol of honor and wealth, the nobility put large stakes on tulip bulbs. Thanks to this speculation, the price of the bulbs doubled every day as ordinary people also rushed to stock up on tulip bulbs.

Tulip lovers nowadays are at the top of over 40 percent of the world’s horticulture and crop seeds distribution.

The Netherlands, though, originally suffered from a great disadvantage in becoming an agricultural power. The land was usually submerged because the territory was below sea level. So the Dutch put endless efforts into land reclamation projects and _ voila! They now make full use of this precious land to produce dairy and garden products of high quality.

Another reason why they achieved the leading position in farming is their high awareness and investment in research and development. Holland’s seed companies usually spend more time and money on development in new species and breeding compared to other leading seed companies around the world.

The reason that we should focus on the seed industry is because seeds can be a key factor in our food source with sustainable pollution-free environment and can create countless value added products.

In the movie “Martian,” the isolated main character could live on only after achieving success in growing potatoes for a staple food which clearly shows that producing something to eat is critical and essential for people to exist.

Second, we are already in the center of a royalties’ war. The government predicts it will pay at least 800 billion won in royalties to foreign markets every year. That is to say, a tangerine orchard on Jeju Island must pay royalties to Japan because almost 99 percent of the tangerine seeds came from Japan, and we customers are the last in the chain to take this burden.

The market share of 10 major multinational seed enterprises has gone up more than five times and they are accelerating in developing climate change-resistant seeds with their cutting-edge technology. Then, what should we do to pay less and ask more in royalties? Let’s look at a specific case.

There is a seed company cluster in the northwest of the Netherlands. In the “Seed Valley,” the world’s largest companies and small businesses work together with governmental organizations to create a synergy.

Mid-sized companies there tend to focus only on a single crop to raise their competitiveness. Then, public institutions conduct tests on newly developed crops to ensure their quality and profitability.

When you visit this wet fertile territory, you will see ongoing land reclamation at places with lots of domestic animals feeding on the other side. Other countries can learn and benchmark this industrious nation.

The writer is an English teacher at Inhun Middle School in Seoul.