Tim's Blog

I spent some time in South Korea recently, attending the IFOAM Organic Asia Conference 2009. Organic appears to be alive and well in Asia and still expanding, although the global economic downturn may have reduced the rate of growth over previous years.

The conference was attended by representatives of the organic sector from China, Taiwan, Japan, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, India and Sri Lanka. Speakers included guests from UK and Germany (organic fibre), Italy (wine), Australia (cosmetics and climate change).

Both Andre Leu (Organic Federation of Australia Chairperson) and I (as OFA Deputy-Chair) spoke about climate change, and I also participated in the organic wine conference presentations. My presentations were popular because, as usual, we used many images of practical farming. My topic was organic farmer responses to climate change, and it was one of only a couple of presentations that were on farming rather than policy and theory, so it was well received. Marg Wills from OFC spoke on the topic of organic cosmetics, especially standards development.

The conference was in part a dress-rehearsal for the next (17th) IFOAM Organic World Congress, to be held in South Korea in September 2011. It will be the first OWC to be held in Asia. The Koreans did an exceptional job organising the recent event, and the WC should be a great success.

Korea does have a 5,000 year history of agriculture, characterised by paddy rice, but in reality quite diverse and productive. The government has some pro-organic policies, although it also has some disputes. While we were in Korea there were protests from a group of early-adopters of organic farming. The government was proposing to acquire their land as part of a river beautification program. I don’t know about beautification, but from my limited view of the countryside I would say they do need some erosion and sedimentation control programs on Korean rivers.

Koreans are engaged with traditional food and with health issues. Tonic drinks and potions are on display in retail stores and we visited some organic clothing, and retail food stores and an organic restaurant. Korea has 12,033 hectares of certified organic land representing 8,460 farms, so clearly most farming is done on a very small scale compared to Australia. The area under organic is just over 0.5% of the agricultural land. The retail market is still small but is expected to grow at 30% per annum. One tip for Australian exporters is there appears to be a significant opportunity for organic meat, especially beef. Organic beef is in demand, but rarely available and sells quickly when it is in stock. Some organic beef comes from the USA, but Koreans regard the US as a suspect supply source and would prefer grass-fed Australian beef.

My final comment has to be about the politeness of Korean society. It is a aspect of the Korean people that was pleasing, unexpected and welcome and it has encouraged me to start planning for an extra week in the country after the OWC. It extended to every part of my engagement with the local people. Even the hip youngsters on the street parted to let us through and greeted us in a respectful and friendly way. Although English is spoken by fewer people than in many other Asian countries, we found everyone in stores and restaurants could communicate at a basic level and people actually stopped to ask us if we needed direction or assistance. For those of us who travel regularly to different countries, it was refreshing to find such a friendly society, even extending to young kids hanging out on the street.