When Choi Kyu-hong imagines the possibilities his work might give him in the future, he is thinking of a huge skyscraper filled with plants that grow grain, vegetables, crops, maybe even cows and pigs raised on a few floors in between the plants. Choi is an agricultural scientist, working for South Korea’s Rural Development Administration in a three-story vertical farm in Suwon, approximately 46 kilometers south of Seoul.

The future of farming is still murky, but what Choi is working on could be a glimpse of what is to come.

“Lately there are many disasters happening, such as earthquakes, heavy snowfall or heavy rain and less sunshine. We have to prepare and that is why we are researching plant factories,” says Choi. 

Park Hwan-il, already working from one of the many skyscrapers in southern Seoul, is a research fellow at the Samsung Economic Research Institute, an economist and a specialist on food security. His focus is on securing a stable supply of high-quality food from abroad.

“Climate change and natural disasters increased food prices,” Park says. The outcome, he explains, was food crises, such as those in 2008 and 2010.

Both Choi and Park, although their work is different, recognize the urgency for preemptive measures to deal with climate change and its effect on food production.

Food security, or a state’s ability to provide enough food to feed its people, was once known as a topic more closely related to malnourished, underdeveloped regions. However, it is now also widely recognized by industrialized countries. South Korea is no exception because it, too, has to prepare for the future. On Sunday, some 70 experts from South Korea, China and Japan gathered in South Korea to discuss the matter and agreed to share information on agricultural policy, regional food situation and animal and plant disease contagion.

Already in 2005, a study carried out by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ranked South Korea 25th out of 30 in terms of food security.

The ranking is somewhat misleading. Just looking at rice production, South Korea’s main staple, the country has a self-sufficiency rate of close to 100 percent, Park says. It is wheat, corn and soybeans that are imported on a large scale. So, the overall food self-sufficiency rate drops down to something around one fourth of that of rice. South Korea is the third largest corn buyer in the world. Large scale importers such as South Korea have to find ways to deal with the decreasing supply of foodstuff on the one hand and rising prices on the other, which in recent years has led to land-grabbing mainly in Africa and Central Asia.

The change in Koreans’ eating habits has compounded the problem.

“Around 100 kilograms of rice were eaten per head in 1980,” Park explains. “Today the number dropped to around 70 kilograms.”

Instead of rice for breakfast, bread is becoming more common ― it is faster to prepare and easier to eat when in a hurry.

For its food supply, South Korea has taken steps abroad. In April 2011, “aT Grain” was set up in Chicago by the state-owned Korea Agro-Fisheries Trade Corporation in cooperation with Samsung C&T Corp., Hanjin Transportation Co. and STX Corp. aT Grain aims at securing stable supply from the very source of the grain. For the second half of 2012, aT Grain wants to expand buying companies specialized in storage and distribution.

Aside from the political and economic ramifications of such steps, experts like Park worry that quality of the foods may be compromised in the process.

In his study “New Food Security Strategies in the Age of Global Food Crises” published in April last year, Park of SERI names the two important components ― “food supply” and “food value.” He writes, “Food policy requires a comprehensive strategy that considers both food supply stability and food safety.”

For consumers, food safety often means turning to organic supermarkets and having to buy more expensive products.

“Since I have a kid, I’ve been going to organic supermarkets,” says Shin Hyeon-so after shopping at one in Seoul’s southeast. “It is safer.” Shin, a mother of a 4-year-old boy, says she is willing to pay up to 20 percent more for quality food.

“Strict quality checks, local production of meat and fish, as well as freshness make customers trust (us),” says Woo Nam-soo, the shop manager at an Orga Whole Foods branch in Seoul. “Every time poor food quality becomes an issue on TV, we gain customers,” he says.

The notion of food security and safety, however, is more than about global supply and demand of foodstuff, according to Prof. Oh Se-young of Kyung Hee University’s department of food and nutrition. For Oh, who co-authored a study late last year on how to measure food insecurity a local level, it is education and awareness about food that help people reach healthiness regardless of their income of the availability of organic foods.

“Diet quality is related to not only a lack of money but also a lack of time or motivation to do something,” Oh says.

Experiments on local urban food production, inspired by vertical farms, have already gained ground in Seoul. At Lotte Mart in Seoul Station, “Happy Garden” lets customers see for themselves how their lettuce is grown inside the supermarket without unexpected or hidden environmental influences.

What is being carried out at the vertical farm in Suwon and the Happy Garden could be the beginning of a totally new era of farming that can increase quality of a variety of foods. Joachim Sauerborn, professor of agricultural science at the University of Hohenheim, Germany, envisions a vertical farm not so different from the one in Suwon, but technologically more advanced to minimize environmental influences to none at all.

“We don’t even want people inside the Sky Farm,” Sauerborn said of his vertical farm. “We want to keep ― for example rice ― completely free from germs, insert it in the house and transport it on a conveyor over 120 days vertically from one side to the other.

During that time, it grows under perfect conditions. And after 120 days the fully grown plant comes out,” Sauerborn says.

For South Korea, his concept must sound appealing. Although people have turned more and more to bread and other “faster foods,” rice is and is likely to remain the most consumed food, in the future and high above ground. 

(Yonhap News)