4th Week Of cabbages and Kims

[아무개]

South Korea's kimchi crisis

Of cabbages and Kims

Forget mad dictators. The price of cabbage is what really worries Koreans

Oct 7th 2010 | SEOUL

IN SEOUL, the South Korean government is staring nervously across the border, wondering about the succession under way in North Korea. The city is also preparing for a G20 summit in November. But the word on everyone’s lips is cabbage. The price of this humble vegetable, which forms the basis of kimchi, the Korean national dish, is soaring. Everyone from the president to the commonest crook and blogger is getting in on the act.

It is hard to exaggerate the importance to Korean life of kimchi, which is usually made of fermented cabbage. Its presence at every meal, as well as its health benefits, give it an almost religious status. It is a national symbol, and the one food item that (in an entirely unscientific poll undertaken by The Economist) a majority of Koreans “cannot live without”.

It is unfortunate, then, that one head of cabbage can now cost over 11,000 won ($10), more than pork and up from 2,000-3,000 won a year ago (see chart). Kimchi is now being dubbedkeum-chi, the first syllable being Korean for gold.

Such is the clamour for the stuff that when the municipal authority of one rural town announced that it would sell cheap packets of cabbage in brine, its website was inundated with inquiries and crashed. Last week a group of men was arrested for trying to steal 400 cabbages in rural Gangwon province.

A poor harvest brought on by bad weather was the original culprit, but with prices soaring, hoarding may also be responsible. Year-on-year inflation jumped from 2.6% to 3.6% between August and September, pushed up by cabbage’s new status as the Ferrari of vegetables. Annual cabbage-price inflation is now 400% in Seoul, say official statistics.

Normally, Koreans serve home-grown kimchi as a matter of honour. But people are now looking abroad for their fix, sparking a debate about the suitability or otherwise of different countries’ cabbages. Many Koreans think Chinese-grown agricultural produce is unsafe, but they are having to swallow their pride about that. President Lee Myung-bak says he will be getting his personal stash from Western producers, earning him comparisons to Marie-Antoinette from South Korea’s numerous and critical bloggers. His administration has announced the temporary lifting of tariffs on import!!ed cabbages, in advance of the traditionalkimjang season, in which kimchi is prepared for the winter.

The country has not yet seen rioting in the streets, as happened in Mexico’s tortilla crisis of 2007. Nor are trenchcoat-clad men whispering down dark alleys, “psst, want some cabbage?” However, Korea’s kimchi crisis is a worry, not just for cabbage-munchers but policymakers. Food-price inflation—as in much of the world—is a serious matter.

Asia