SEOUL, OCT 7 – South Korea’s rice output is expected to fall 1.2 percent this year due to shrinking planting areas, according to statistics office data released today.
A total of 3,657,000 tons of rice, a staple food for South Koreans, is expected to be produced in the country this year, according to Statistics Korea.
This is a decrease of 1.2 percent compared to 3,702,000 tons in the previous year, maintaining a downward trend for three consecutive years.
This lower rice production is due to the continuous decline in rice paddy areas. The size of rice fields across South Korea shrank by 1.5 percent over the year to 697,714 hectares in 2024, marking the lowest since relevant data began to be collected in 1965. – Xinhua
