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Korea's apple farmers head north as climate crisis heats up

Published: 01 Jan. 2025, 07:00 Updated: 01 Jan. 2025, 18:55

LEE SOO-JUNG
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Park Hyoung-su, a 59-year-old orchardist, takes care of apples on his farm in Yanggu County, Gangwon last summer. [JOONGANG ILBO]

Park Hyoung-su, a 59-year-old orchardist, who grows apples in Yanggu County in northern Gangwon, says warmer temperatures are forcing farmers in South Korea to head northward in search of a more optimal and cooler farming climate.

“I am now hoping for the unification of the two Koreas. Otherwise, we might have to move to Siberia,” Park said with a bitter smile.

Soaring temperatures have driven optimal farming sites northward, but the fruit farmers are stuck south of the inter-Korean border. Over the past century, Korea has experienced a 1.6 degrees Celsius (2.88 degrees Fahrenheit) temperature rise.

Park refers to himself as a “climate refugee,” having moved from North Gyeongsang to Gangwon. Gangwon is the coldest region in Korea with the highest latitude, while North Gyeongsang is located far below Gangwon.

The JoongAng Ilbo’s special reporting team visited Park’s apple farm in Yangju County in August and September — when the country was broiled by a summer heatwave.

Park’s orchard spanning across some 24.5 acres — dubbed the “apple highland” – is situated at the top of a mountain in Yanggu County. His neighbors recognized him as the owner of the house “atop" of the county.

However, the top of the mountain is not his homeland.

Park was born and raised in the city of Yeongcheon in North Gyeongsang, where his farming career began. He grew both apples and peaches in the city for more than 17 years.

In mid-2010, he realized unusual signs in the soil due to a temperature rise. The phenomenon was not favorable for growing apples, which prefer cooler temperatures in an environment with average annual temperatures ranging between eight and 11 degrees Celsius — particularly, 15 to 18 degrees Celsius during their growing season.

While the huge daily temperature gap between day and night helps fruits grow, the soil, grilled by daytime heat, emits heat even after sunset. The constant heat emanating from the ground during the night affected the growth of Park's apples, making the fruit stay the same size.

The warmer weather turned insects more active. Park said scale insects and fruit moths were everywhere, ravaging his orchard. “Fruits had to be thrown away once the bugs lay eggs on branches of apple trees.”

Although changes in soil conditions and insects were bothersome, the final nail in the coffin for Park was in 2016 when a fungal disease called anthracnose struck his business in 2016.

Apples are plagued by anthracnose. The fungus rots the apple from outside to inside. [GYEONGSANGBUK-DO PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT]

Anthracnose, characterized by black dots on the apple’s surface, rots the apple from outside to inside, and the hot and humid weather only aided the spread of the virus.

As the fungus plagued Park’s apples in 2016, he had to scrap an entire harvest of apples grown from his 60,491-square-foot farmland in North Gyeongsang.

The loss prompted Park to relocate himself and his business to the northern region and to purchase land in Yanggu County a year later. He even dared to suffer two to three years of deficit because apple trees require two to three years for full growth.

Although there was no guarantee that the environment in Gangwon would be adequate for apple farming, he thought it would be “worthwhile” to relocate after having a bite of Yanggu-grown apple in October, which was well-ripened and delicious. Apples harvested around October usually have a dry taste.

Gangwon, the last bastion

Gangwon has emerged as new fertile land for apple farmers.

In 2005, by size of land, Gangwon accounted for 0.5 percent of apple orchards nationwide, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. The province saw a ten-fold increase, marking five percent of entire orchards across the country in 2023.

On the other hand, other provinces originally known for mass apple production faced a downturn. In 2005, North Gyeongsang took up 62.3 percent of land occupied by apple orchards across the country. However, it slid to 59.3 percent in 2023. Also, North Chungcheong's rate declined from 14.1 percent to 11.1 percent in the same time frame.

Kim Beop-jeong, the head of an apple orchardists’ cooperative in Yanggu County, speaks to the JoongAng Ilbo's reporters on an apple farm in Gangwon. [WANG JUNE-YEL]

Kim Beop-jeong, the head of an apple orchardists’ cooperative in Yanggu County, said his locality has become a major apple production site. He added that nearly all orchardists in the town were originally from outside of Gangwon.

Kim is also not a Gangwon native. Like Park, Kim also migrated from North Gyeongsang to Gangwon in the mid-2010s.

Yet, Kim seemingly pointed out that climate change is also affecting Yanggu County — once deemed safe for apples.

“When I first arrived in the county, there were no outdoor fans as households here had no air conditioning devices. However, now, most homes have their own air conditioners,” Kim said.

Park said Gangwon is also not safe from the climate crisis.

“Some apples suffered sunburn even in September last year, despite none in 2023,” Park said. The damaged apples with sunscald — a result of excessive exposure to sunlight — had a yellowish surface. Apple growers should either dump the damaged apples or squeeze the juice out of them.

Kim also criticized the government's lack of attention to farmers' struggle, adding its price-controlling response to price inflation does not eliminate structural problems. “Farmers are migrating at their own expense to survive, leaving their hometowns behind.”

Pyeon Gyeong-ja, 57, who also relocated to Gangwon with her husband Park, likened themselves to “polar bears which barely stand on a tiny iceberg after losing their natural habitat as other icebergs melt.”

“We have come to Gangwon as available farmland for apples shrinks,” Pyeon said, noting further climate change could have them think of “international migration” — as a path to the northern land is blocked by North Korea.

Warmer Korea

A prediction map showing land that could cultivate apples based on significant usage of fossil fuels. The blue-colored area is the appropriate region for growing apples. The left image shows the land availability between 1981 and 2010 and the right in the 2030s. [NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF HORTICULTURAL AND HERBAL SCIENCE]

Climate change in Korea is progressing at a terrifying speed.

According to a 2022 speculation by the state-run Rural Development Administration, 18.2 percent of Korean territory would be subtropical by 2030 if the country does not reduce its carbon emissions. By 2050, some 55.9 percent of Korea’s land is expected to be subtropical. Currently, only 6.3 percent of land is categorized as a subtropical climate.

Korea saw an average annual temperature rise of 1.6 degrees Celsius between 1912 and 2020, according to the Ministry of Environment’s white paper submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2023. Korea’s temperature rise is steeper than the global average of 1.09 degrees Celsius.

The changing climate also naturally affects the agriculture industry. If the temperature continues to rise, it might trigger farmers, regardless of the type of crops they grow, to relocate en masse.

Generally, a temperature rise by a single degree Celsius drives the optimal spot for growing crops and fruits around 81 kilometers (50 miles) upward. At the current speed, in only four to five decades Korea will only be able to produce apples in Gangwon.

That means that the number of climate refugees like Park and Kim will continue to surge as long as farmers continue to work.

Last year’s heatwave — which lingered until late September — sent produce prices soaring, doubling or tripling the burden on consumers.

Food and Agriculture Minister Song Mi-ryung said cabbage prices are likely to drop as harvest season nears during her press briefing in August. However, the crop price soared.

A retail price of a single cabbage cost 9,662 won ($6.55) at the end of September, according to the Korea Agro-Fisheries and Food Trade Corporation’s disclosure. The price of cabbage in the same period in 2023 was around 6,193 won, and its price in June was around 3,000 won.

In 2023, just before Chuseok, an apple was priced over 10,000 won — approximately 7,000 won above the average cost. Back then, multiple media reports depicted the fruit as a “golden apple” due to its expensive price tag.

Heatwaves and heavy downpours hiked crop prices. In 2023, apple prices soared, and last year cabbage.

Harsh consequences

President Yoon Suk Yeol, center, supervises food prices along with officials at an apple section in a supermarket in southern Seoul on March 18. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

Climate experts and economists warned that the food crisis will persist as long as climate change continues.

According to a research report published in the science journal Nature, titled “The impact of global warming on inflation: averages, seasonality and extremes,” temperature rises drive inflation regardless of the income level of the countries. Maximilian Kotz, a guest researcher from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Eliza Lis from the European Central Bank, authored the report.

The research team found that average temperature rises have led to a straight 12-month inflation at 121 developed and developing countries by analyzing their monthly consumer price indexes from 1996 to 2021. It also assessed that average food prices could increase by one to three percentage points yearly due to so-called “climate inflation.”

Prof. Hong Jong-ho from the Graduate School of Environment Studies at Seoul National University also pointed out that Korea’s “grain self-sufficiency rate is at around 19 percent, which is extremely low” when compared to other countries. That of Japan was tallied at 27.3 percent and Canada at 192 percent in 2020 — when Korea’s grain self-sufficiency rate was around 19 percent.

“If global issues affect grain or crop imports to Korea, consequences of agflation or foodflation — amalgams of agriculture and inflation and food and inflation, respectively — to Korea’s economy could be more intense than foreign countries,” Hong said. He also noted a case where India’s ban on wheat export in 2022 aggravated the global food supply chain, which had already been hit by a war between Russia and Ukraine which began in the same year.

His remarks appeared to raise alarm about Korea’s high dependency on imports, which is naturally prone to climate crises and geopolitical conflicts worldwide.

“Relying on imports is a temporary fix, and presuming 'golden apple' as a new normal is a mere estimate,” Hong added, seemingly saying that the golden apple would not be the worst and worse inflation driven by the climate crisis could arrive.

BY SPECIAL REPORTING TEAM [[email protected]]