The Rural Development Administration provided guidelines for managing crops and agricultural facilities in preparation for heavy snowfall and cold waves, urging farmers to conduct thorough on-site management. With nationwide heavy snowfall expected in February, the administration plans to cooperate with local rural development agencies to disseminate weather alerts and strengthen responses to minimize damage to farms.
On the 31st, the Rural Development Administration noted, "To support the stable supply of crops that are currently being harvested or are about to be shipped, we will enhance our on-site guidance tailored to growth conditions." The administration plans to monitor regional weather conditions in real-time and implement proactive measures targeting farms likely to suffer damage.
Earlier, the Rural Development Administration provided advance response measures via text messages and online notifications to over 200,000 facility cultivation farms nationwide in accordance with heavy snowfall forecasts during the Lunar New Year holiday. In particular, it encouraged ginseng and blueberry farms to dismantle netting facilities. The administration established a disaster response system in cooperation with vice mayors and agricultural technology center directors from 24 cities and counties in the Chungcheong and Honam regions.
On the 27th and 28th, a video conference chaired by the Director of Rural Support was held with officials from provincial agricultural technology institutes to assess regional damage conditions. Following that, on the 31st, the disaster response officer visited the Jin'an and Imsil regions of North Jeolla Province, where heavy snowfall warnings were in effect, to review the on-site response system.
During the heavy snowfall advisory period, the winter disaster response headquarters of the Rural Development Administration monitored snow accumulation depths in disaster-resilient greenhouses in real-time and sent response guidelines to facility farms in areas expecting heavy snowfall three times a day via text messages. It conducted on-site inspections more than twice a day to support damage prevention for farms.
Kwon Cheol-hee, director of the Rural Support at the Rural Development Administration, stated, "As heavy snowfall and cold waves are expected in February, we will focus all efforts on minimizing damage, centering around the disaster response headquarters," and added, "We will do our utmost to minimize damage to facility crops and winter crops cultivation farms."