Farmers, frustrated at financial losses, take to streets

ROK-Chile FTA, housing prices leave them infuriated, they say

Angry farmers held demonstrations in the cities across the nation on November 22, saying that their life is getting worse due to the government's pushing for a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States.

Usually, large-scale protests are concentrated in Seoul. But on November 22, Gangwon province and North and South Chuncheong provinces saw large protests. Jo Gwan-ho, a farmer of North Chuncheong Province, 43, said "the government ignores the farmers and keeps going foward with FTA with the United States. " Kim Jeong-uk, 45, of North Gyeongsang Province, said, "I finished the fall harvest, but I don't have anything in my hands, due to the drop in rice prices. It is because the system under which the government buy the farmers rice out at the reasonable price was abolished. "

South Korea and the U.S. have been in negotiations for the proposed FTA since early this year.

At first, the nationwide farmers' demonstrations on November 22 were not violent. But then, in North Chungcheong province, demonstrators broke down the fence and gate of the provincial office after their demand to meet Governor Jeong U-taek was rebuffed. Violence broke out in other locations as the protests progressed.

Regarding the farmers' protests becoming violent, Kim Nam-gyun, an official at a civic organization in the province, pointed out that it shows how infuriated the farmers have become.

"It is a problem for the government to completely ignore the farmers, leaving them isolated, and to unilaterally push through the FTA with the U.S.," said Jeong.

The latest mass demonstrations were caused by disappointment and emptiness felt by farmers after this year's harvest, farmers said. They said their anger exploded because they will suffer enormous losses due to the opening up of the domestic agricultural product market and the abolishment of the system under which the government purchases rice.

Other farmers say their sense of being deprived, stemming from the recent skyrocketing real estate prices, has brought about the violent demonstrations. A farmer living in Nae-myeon, Hongcheon, Gangwon Province, said that "farmers watching the sharp rise of the price of apartments in Seoul have completely lost the will to live. Some are just sitting there and getting great windfalls, while others worked hard all their lives but are still empty handed."

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