Anders Riel Muller Dissertation 7026
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THE MAKING OF A FOOD SECURITY CRISIS - OVERSEAS AGRICULTURAL INVESTMENTS AND NATIONA- LISM IN SOUTH KOREA Anders Riel Müller Doctoral School of Society and Globalisation Institute for Society and Globalisation Supervisor: Christian Lund Co-Supervisor: Helle Munk Ravnborg ISSN: 0909-9174 THE MAKING OF A FOOD SECURITY CRISIS - OVERSEAS AGRICUTURAL INVESTMENTS AND NATIONALISM IN SOUTH KOREA Front page: Korean farmers protesting the 2008 reopening for U.S. beef imports. © Getty Images Anders Riel Müller Doctoral School of Society and Globalisation Institute for Society and Globalisation Roskilde University Supervisor: Christian Lund Co-Supervisor: Helle Munk Ravnborg ISSN: 0909-9174 Acknowledgements This dissertation benefited from the support provided by my supervisors Christian Lund, Helle Munk Ravnborg and former supervisor Stefano Ponte. My colleagues at Roskilde University’s Department of Society and Globalisation, the International Development Research Group, and fellow PhD students at the ISG Doctoral School have provided me with immense moral support and valuable feedback throughout the process. I would also like to thank my colleagues in the Natural Resources and Development research group at the Danish Institute for International Studies. Furthermore, I would like to thank the people at the Nordic Institute for Asian Studies at Copenhagen University for hosting me at various times during my PhD especially Bo who fed me cake and chocolate. My field research in South Korea would not have been possible without the generous support of a lot of people including Mun Young Cho, Hyun Mee Kim, and Haejoang Cho at Yonsei University’s Department of Cultural Anthropology who generously hosted me for six months. Your political and academic engagement is inspiring. Also thanks to Thomas Kalinowski and Eun Mee Kim at EWHA Womans University. Haesook Kim provided invaluable help in setting up interviews and interpreting during my time in Korea and taught me so much about Korean politics. I would also like to thank the many farmers in South Korea, who over the years have fed me and shared their life stories of struggles and visions for an alternative future for agriculture in South Korea. Thanks to Hellina Sarin for interpreting and providing insights into Cambodia during my time there. I benefited immensely from a research stay at Manchester University’s School of Environment, Education and Development thanks to Jamie Doucette who has been an invaluable support throughout the past year of dissertation writing. Field work and research stays abroad were made possible through financial support from the ISG Doctoral School as well as a generous grant from the EAC Foundation. Thanks to my family in Denmark as well as my family in South Korea who have been supportive throughout this whole process, which has involved a personal journey to learn more about the country and society from which I was abruptly removed 35 years ago. Finally, I would like to thank all my friends around the world and not the least special thanks to Lene Myong who has provided much moral support and lent her ear to all my complaining for so many years. Acronyms and Abbreviations ABARE Australian Bureau of Agricultural Economics BOP Balance of Payment BSE Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy CBOT Chicago Board of Trade CFU Catholic Farmers’ Union CPI Consumer price inflation EPB Economic Planning Board FTA Free Trade Agreement GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade HHI Hyundai Heavy Industries HQB High Quality Beef KFRSF Korea Food Security Research Foundation KORUS-FTA Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement KPL Korean Peasants League KRCC Korea Rural Community Corporation KREI Korea Rural Economics Research Institute KWPA Korean Women’s Peasant Association LIDECOR Livestock Development Corporation LPMO Livestock Promotion and Marketing Organization LVC La via Campesina MAFF Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries MFN Most Favored Nation MOFAT Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade NACF National Agriculture Cooperative Federation NLCF National Livestock Cooperative Federation NTC Non-trade concerns OADA Overseas Agricultural Development Association OADS Overseas Agricultural Development Service ORD Office of Rural Development OSROK Office of Supply of the Republic of Korea RDA Rural Development Administration RDP Reunification and Democracy Party SBS Simultaneous Buy and Sell SRM Specified risk materials URAA Uruguay Round Agreement of Agriculture USDA United States Department of Agriculture *A note on transliteration of names and terms. Most academic works on Korea employ the McCune-Reischauer system. I have chosen to use the Revised Romanization system because of its readability. I have always felt uncomfortable with the McCune-Reischauer system as it feels like an academic rite of passage to use a system not in use in daily life. There are exceptions in cases where common usage differs, or where someone has selected another transliteration of their personal names. I generally follow the Korean naming practices with the given name preceded by the family name. In referencing authors with Korean names, I follow the naming practice used by the author. Table of Contents Chapter 1 - Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 Research Questions ............................................................................................................................................. 9 Trade Liberalization and National Food Crises ....................................................................................... 13 Nationalism, Sovereignty, and Food Politics ........................................................................................... 18 Chapter Overview ............................................................................................................................................... 22 Chapter 2 – Theoretical Reflections and Analytical Framework ........................................ 25 Food Regime Theory ........................................................................................................................................ 26 The Politics of Agricultural Policy: The World Economy, the State, and Class Struggle.......... 35 Gastronationalism .............................................................................................................................................. 50 Economic Interests and Economic Nationalism in an age of Globalization ................................ 52 Gastronationalism and Agro-food Politics in South Korea ................................................................ 58 Chapter 3 - Methodological Reflections ............................................................................... 63 What’s the Problem Represented to Be? .................................................................................................. 64 Initial data collection and identifying the ‘problem’ ............................................................................. 70 Research Design and Data Collection ........................................................................................................ 72 Positionality .......................................................................................................................................................... 83 Chapter 4 - State Agro-Food Policy ...................................................................................... 89 Food Aid, Light Industrialization, and Squeezing of Agriculture 1961 - 1970 ............................ 94 The 'Big Push' for Agricultural Self-Sufficiency 1971 - 1979 .......................................................... 104 Political and Economic Liberalization ...................................................................................................... 113 GATT disputes and the Uruguay Round Negotiations ..................................................................... 121 The Global Food Crisis and South Korea’s Overseas Agricultural Development Strategy for Food Security .................................................................................................................................................... 133 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................................... 142 Chapter 5 - The Rise of the Hanu Industry ......................................................................... 149 The Ascent of Cattle Farming 1976 - 1987 ............................................................................................ 156 Beef Import Liberalization and Political Fragmentation 1988 - 1996 ......................................... 170 Financial Crisis and Competitiveness Measures 1997 - 2007 ......................................................... 182 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................................... 200 Chapter 6 - The Rise of Gastronationalism ........................................................................ 207 Minjung Nationalism and Formation of Peasant Identity ............................................................... 214 Sintoburi ............................................................................................................................................................. 226 Farmers, Hanu, and Popular Media .........................................................................................................