Per capita rice consumption hits all-time low in 2015


Korea plans to export rice to China for the first time in February after both sides agreed on a set of quarantine requirements last year, the farm ministry said Friday.

According to the ministry, 30 tons of rice will be loaded onto containers at Gunsan port on the west coast later Friday, which will leave in early February and arrive in Shanghai in mid-February for customs procedures.

After clearing Chinese customs, the Korean rice will be marketed at 69 outlets of the Shanghai Lotte Market. The ministry plans to hold promotional events between late February and early March.

The ministry said it plans to ship an additional 70 tons of rice to China in the middle of next month through Korea's Daewoo International Corp. and the China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corp.  

The rice exports come seven years after Korea first requested that China allow them. Exports had been blocked by China's tough quarantine requirements, but Seoul and Beijing agreed on new terms following the Korea-China summit talks in October last year.

The ministry said Korea hopes to export a total of 2,000 tons of rice this year.

Agriculture Minister Lee Dong-phil said entering the Chinese market will be an opportunity for Korea's rice exports amid continued imbalance in supply and demand of the key staple grain.

The growing excess of rice has been one of the government's urgent tasks to resolve. The government aims to seek a balance between the supply and demand of rice by 2018 through gradual reduction in the area of rice paddies and expansion of domestic consumption and exports.

According to the ministry's plan, the area of rice paddies should decline from 799,000 hectares this year to 711,000 hectares in 2018, a significantly smaller area than the expected 749,000 hectares of paddies that would be in service if no action is taken.

According to government data released Friday, Korea's per capita rice consumption fell 3.4 percent on-year to a record low of 62.9 kilograms last year as people added other types of grain products to their diet.

The average annual consumption of rice per person fell to 62.9 kilograms last year, down 3.4 percent from the previous year's 65.1 kg, according to data by Statistics Korea.

This marked the lowest level since recordkeeping started in 1963, when consumption was 105.5 kg. Compared with 1970 when consumption hit a record high of 136.4 kg, rice intake has fallen by more than 53 percent.

Daily rice consumption per person also dropped to 172.4 grams last year from 178.2 g the year before, the data showed.

"The steady drop can be attributed to people reducing their rice intake and diversifying their diets with other alternative grains like wheat, barley, beans and corn," the statistics agency said.

Reflecting this, consumption of non-rice grain edged up to 8.8 kg in 2018 from 8.7 kg the year before, the statistical agency said.

It said consumption of grains other than rice made up 12.3 percent of the country's diet last year. This number has been rising since 2011, when it stood at 9.4 percent.

Compared with urban households, people who live in rural areas ate more rice, although even this figure declined. On average, a member of a farming household consumed 102.1 kg of rice last year, down 2.5 percent from 2014.

Rice used by food and beverage manufacturers, on the other hand, rose a sharp 7.6 percent on-year to 575,460 tons, mainly due to an increase in demand for grain-based alcoholic beverages and processed food, the latest annual data showed.(Yonhap)