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Sung-hoon Park

Sung-hoon Park reports on the markets and policies that set prices at the farm gate, from rice supply plans to cattle cycles and land that has to earn its keep for years. The stories ask who carries the risk when prices move, and what a single price signal can and cannot prove.

Articles by Sung-hoon Park

  1. Fresh pine mushrooms with thick pale stems and brown caps, some still flecked with soil, packed in a box lined with white paper

    Mushrooms & Policy8 min read

    Between the Forest and the Factory: Korea's Mushrooms Ask for a Law of Their Own

    Pine mushrooms still come only from living pine forests, and this autumn's auctions sold a sixth of last year's volume. Most Korean mushrooms grow indoors on sawdust and bran, and the law calls what is left of that substrate waste. Two bills would give the industry an act of its own. What would it change?

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  2. Two white swans with orange-and-black bills face each other on shallow water, with a brown duck at the left edge and a mudflat behind them

    Poultry & Markets8 min read

    The Birds Come Back: Korea's Winter of Avian Flu and the Price of an Egg

    Every autumn wild ducks and swans fly south to Korea, and poultry farms go on alert. Behind each tray of eggs is a layer flock that has been culled and rebuilt before, a compensation rule that pays for caution, and a price the government watches week by week.

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  3. Rows of ginseng plants with clusters of red berries growing under blue shade cloth held up on posts in Geumsan

    Specialty Crops8 min read

    Six Years in One Field

    A ginseng root holds its field for up to six years, under shade and through every summer, and then the land cannot grow ginseng again for a decade or more. That is why Korea's ginseng farms keep moving, and why the industry is now trying to make them stay.

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  4. A brown Hanwoo cow standing in a green pasture in Korea

    Livestock & Markets5 min read

    Hanwoo: The Long Economics of Korea's Beef

    The premium on a Hanwoo cut is built long before a grade appears on the label. Genetics, calf prices, imported feed, months on farm, carcass yield and marbling all meet at one auction rail.

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  5. Young rice plants in flooded paddies on Ganghwa Island beneath a broad spring sky

    Grains & Staples5 min read

    Rice: The Politics of the Bowl

    Every bowl begins in a flooded field, but Korea's rice year is now shaped as much by acreage targets, labor, and public stocks as it is by rain and harvest.

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