"Excellent storage." Domestic onion development..."Seed self-sufficiency and loyalty reduction"

[Anchor]
More than half of the onions produced in Korea import seeds at high usage fees.

In Jeollanam-do, which produces the largest amount of onions in the country, we have developed a new domestic onion variety and started distributing it to farms.

I'm reporter Oh Sun-yeol.

[Reporter]
It is an onion field that grows more than 300 onion varieties around the world.

Nine of these are domestically developed varieties.

Domestic new varieties of onions are hard and have excellent storage power due to their low decay rate.

Onions grown in Korea import more than 60% of seeds.

Jeollanam-do Agricultural Research and Extension Services has been developing new varieties since 2010 to increase the self-sufficiency rate of domestic varieties of onions.

The onions developed on their own are distributed to 160㏊ areas, including Muan and Goheung, and are being cultivated empirically in seven areas in Jeollanam-do and Gyeongnam.

Breed development, which takes about 15 years, also shortened the breeding period by using biotechnology technology.

[Kim Sung-joon / Jeonnam Agricultural Research & Extension Services Agricultural Research & Extension Services: The goal was to replace imported species and foster varieties that can respond to climate change. Using molecular breeding technology, we greatly shorten the existing incubation period..]

To solve the problem of overproduction of onions, we also made various processed products such as onion jelly, sauce, and dressing.

[Lee Sun-kyung / Jeonnam Agricultural Research & Extension Services: We have developed a total of 7 types including dressing and jelly. We developed a product to cope with the disposal of the production area.]

Jeollanam-do Agricultural Research and Extension Services plans to foster domestic cultivation complexes and establish a cooperative system with farmers to revitalize the onion industry.

[Kim Haeng-ran / Jeonnam Agricultural Research & Extension Services Director: We will continue to strive to foster excellent new varieties and develop processed products to establish ourselves as the center of the global onion industry.]

The annual cost of onion seeds from South Jeolla Province alone is 6 billion won.

Jeollanam-do Agricultural Research and Extension Services plans to increase the supply rate of domestic onion seeds to 45% by 2030 through technical support for farms.

This is YTN Osunyeol.