(photo = kangdante)

Throughout our history, agriculture took a big part in Korea. In the past, agriculture helped people survive and was a symbol of wealth. The more productivity you had, the richer you were. Autumn was the best out of all the four seasons since it was the time when most crops prospered. We celebrated each fall by thanking the gods for the gift of food. Nowadays, the Korean economy would collapse without it. A lot of Koreans eat rice almost every day and we cannot import that much amount from another country. However, human greed had no limit and now we are in a crisis.

(photo = 감성ND)

More droughts occur in Korea every year. Every year came with a drought harsher than the previous one. The need of rice is getting higher while the number of farmers is getting lower. Most people think that going into the suburb is a wrong thing to do since you cannot earn much money there. They think that working in a city is more convenient and when someone does go, they think that that person has failed in business and take pity on them. What is worse is that our land is becoming toxic by acid rain and agricultural chemicals. This affects the number of droughts to skyrocket and makes our situation worse. Farmers use agricultural chemicals to kill pests, which eventually destroys their crops. However, they can alternatively use onion juice to do the same job. The trouble is that you need to grind it by yourself. As it takes more time, effort, and money compared with using agricultural chemicals, pesticides are more consumed. Air pollution in Korea is getting more serious and is causing much more dangerous acid rain. This kills the crop that was originally growing and kills the soil that is supposed to be used to grow new products. This is a never ending cycle that is going to loop forever and gets worse as time passes by.

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                                             (photo = Yahoo Image)

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(Image = https://doctordavidfriedman.com/blog/ten-tips-to-avoiding-gmos)

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Sure, there are some other options. We can eat bugs instead of crops and vegetables. A lot of scientists say that eating bugs is the future of food culture, but would it be easy for people to change their lifestyle? Wouldn’t they miss warm white rice on the table? And sure, we can eat GMOs. Scientists are developing new species of plants to save time, money, and land for agriculture. However, we still don’t know if it is really safe for humans. Would it be okay to mess with nature to make something we want? Wouldn’t we end up with a side effect? There are a lot of questions regarding the future of our food system. However, one thing is certain. Our greed to get more has caused global warming which brought the droughts, acid rain, and toxic soil. This cycle that we’ve maintained with the Earth is getting worse and it would not end until we do something about it.

(Image = https://www.alltech.com/articles/soil-our-silent-ally-feeding-world)

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KEEP CALM AND CELEBRATE THE WORLD SOIL DAY, DECEMBER 5TH