Korean Cattle Raising Down 20 Percent

The number of Korean cows has decreased by 20 percent during the past year.
According to domestic livestock statistics issued on March 26 by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the number of Korean cows across the nation as of March 1 amounted to 2.198 million, a decrease of 564,000 from the same time last year.
The reason for the sharp decline is that family-operated small farms abandoned raising cows because imported beef from the U.S., Australia and other countries has substantially increased. In addition the number of female cows slaughtered increased and consequently the number of calves decreased as the price of beef has continued to fall.
The number of family farms raising Korean cattle totaled 413,000, down 12.9 percent compared to one year before.
The price of bulls dropped to 1.61 million won per 500kg last August, but it has since slowly recovered to a current price of 2.1 million won.
Dairy cows totaled 533,000, down 6.2 percent, due to the increase of powdered milk products in the marketplace.

Jangsoo Seo;jsbee@Joongang.co.kr