The Korea Rural Economic Institute (KREI) hosted this year’s second KREI Field Forum on the “Development Direction of Environment-friendly Agriculture” at Hongseong Eco-friendly Agriculture Education Center (Mundang-ri, Hongseong-gun, South Chungcheong Province) from 4:30 pm on June 18 (Wednesday).

KREI, local farmers, public officials, and cooperative staff attended the forum, listened to the presentation about the development direction of eco-friendly agriculture, and discussed the theme. In that day’s discussion, much concern was voiced about abolishing “low pesticide certification” among 2015 environment-friendly agricultural products certification systems.

KREI senior research fellow Jeong Hak-kyun emphasized the necessity for an institutional strategy that enables the rapid conversion of farms with low pesticide certification to organic or pesticide-free farming for eco-friendly agriculture’s continual development in his presentation, “Environment-friendly Agriculture’s Development Direction in Response to the Abolishment of Low Pesticide Certification.” He said, “Special measures are urgently needed including developing and diffusing cultivation technologies for fruits whose conversion to organic or pesticide-free farming is hard.”

At the end of the discussion, KREI President Choi Sei-kyun said, “If low pesticide certification is abolished, actively promoting environment-friendly agricultural products to consumers can strengthen consumers’ trust in them.” He also stressed, “If their trust increases, demand for the products grows, and it can eventually raise the prices.” In addition, he presented the necessity of introducing a temporary insurance system for fruit farms’ conversion into organic or pesticide-free farming.