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| Oriental melons produced in Seongju / Korea Times file |
By Yoon Ja-young
Seongju County in North Gyeongsang Province is famous for Oriental melons ― also known as Korean melons or "chamoe" locally. The yellow-colored, sweet melon, the inside of which is white, has become a main source of revenue for farmers in the region known to produce some 70 percent of the fruit available in Korea.
An increasing number of Seongju farmers, however, are giving up this profitable crop due to their age, according to the Hankook Ilbo, the sister paper of The Korea Times. As the older generation of farmers become weaker each year, they are finding it harder to bend over and squat to cultivate and harvest the fruit that grows in sprawling ground vines. Instead, these melon farmers are increasingly switching to Shine Muscat, an increasingly popular variety of grapes.
Seongju County Agriculture Technology Center reported that as most of the farmers are elderly, they are switching to crops that are less physically demanding to grow, despite the profitability of chamoe melon farming. Seongju is one of the largest aging regional populations in the country. Among the 15,801 registered farmers there, two-thirds are aged 60 or over.
The aging of farmers is affecting crops in other regions too. Goryeong County in North Gyeongsang Province, which is known for sweet watermelon, thanks to its fertile soil, is also seeing farmers give up cultivating watermelon, according to the Hankook Ilbo. The area dedicated to watermelon farming decreased by half during the past five years, as elderly farmers find handling the heavy watermelons burdensome. The county has a population of 30,000, 44 percent of whom are aged 60 or older, which compares with just 29 percent 10 years ago. Instead, the farmers in Goryeong are switching to growing onions.
Elderly farmers giving up cultivating certain crops due to their physical challenges is a phenomenon that can be witnessed nationwide. According to Korea Rural Economic Institute, the total area dedicated to chamoe melon farming in the country decreased by half over the past 10 years, while that of watermelon farming dipped 30 percent, despite these fruits being among the most popular fruits in summer. As a result, prices are rising. For example, the average price of watermelon at Garak Market, a wholesale agricultural products market in Seoul, rose 47 percent from 2014 to 2020.
Agricultural technology centers have been pondering ways to lessen the burden on farmers, including by developing means of inducing these crops to grow vertically, but they are not yet widely available. The spread of COVID-19 has also worsened the situation as it has become more difficult for them to find workers to hire for help. Climate change has compounded the problem as abnormal temperatures and rainfall have led to poor harvests and unpredictable prices.
