Undaria The farmer

In South Korea, farmers typically belong to a “fishing village contract” and have private farms. These farms, especially those in the Southern province of Jeonnam, are large scale  and have several employees. However, South Korea has seen similar demographic developments as Japan, which makes it difficult to find enough labour locally. Labour costs have increased dramatically and make up about 40% of the entire cost of production. Many farmers rely on migrant workers from Southeast Asia who move to farms seasonally.

In Japan, all farmers are cooperative members, while everyone has their own unit where they work. Almost all farmers run small operations in a family-based household industry. A small local fishery cooperative would usually have around 30 members. In recent decades, the number of farming households in Japan has been decreasing significantly. In 1973 there were over 20,000 farming families, while today only 3,000 remain. 35% of all farmers are over 65 years old, and 76.7% do not have successors.

Transition of Undaria aquaculture farming households and production per household in Japan:

The number of Undaria farming households in Japan has significantly declined since 1973, while the production per household only slightly decreased. (Data from Fisheries and Aquaculture Production Statistics, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan)

In the North of China, in Dalian in particular, about 90% of farms are run by companies and operate at a scale that’s about 10 times larger than farm sites in South Korea. Since operations are large and tasks have to be carried out manually, these companies employ many workers. Certain tasks are physically demanding and labour costs have been increasing rapidly (a farm worker currently earns about 28,000 USD or 200,000 yuan annually).