Perspectives and Strategies of Production of Miscellaneous Crops and Animal Feeds

잡곡 및 사료 생산 수급전망과 대책

Environmental conditions and expected profit are the major criteria to select crops to be cultivated in any region. Traditionally, miscellaneous crops have been cultivated as alternative crop in case of unfavorable climate or supplementary crop in marginal lands. Since the successful breeding of high yielding varieties of staple crops and development of cultural techniques in 1970s in Korea, production of miscellaneous crops decreased markedly due to the rapid commercialization of agriculture and increased productions of horticultural crops, although yields have been doubled during the last $2\~3$ decades. On the other hand, animal husbandry has been developing remarkably parallel with national economic development and the increased consumption of animal products. As a result, imports of feed grains such as corn have increased rapidly, while roughage production became lower than demand. Among miscellaneous crops, corn production increased markedly through the development of hybrids and due to its importance as silage crops. Acreage of corn production including grains, fresh corns and feeding is about 120,000 ha, while acreage of buckwheat is about 5,000 ha and those of other miscellaneous crops decreased to a level of about 1,000 ha. Although miscellaneous crops have low yield potential and are unprofitable due to low price and imports of cheap foreign products, they should be kept to cultivate. Miscellaneous crops are important components that maintain diversity among upland crops as well as alternative crops in case of unfavorable climate. The low yield potential of miscellaneous crops might be due to lack of efforts to breed high yielding varieties and to develope cultural techniques. Continuous investment in research, exploitation of new utilization for miscellaneous crops as sustainable crop, honey crop and sightseeing crop, and development of healthy and special foods will promote their cultivation. Animal feeding in Korea depends mainly on formula feeds. As the number of animals increases to meet demand of animal products, there is no alternative way but to import grains to feed them. But roughage production, which is necessary for normal growth of ruminant animals, should be increased. However, lack of arable land and pasture land limits the production of good roughages. It is estimated that number of course for meat and milk production will be $2.5{\~}2.6$ million and total of $6.2{\~}7.5$ million tons of roughages should be produced. This implies that more than 1 million tons of roughage are needed, although pasture land, upland for forage crops, forage crops after rice cultivation and rice straw are utilized. Therefore, new reclamation of pasture land, increased roughage production in cultivating land, increased cultivation of forage crops after rice, more utilization of rice straw and active exploration of indigenous plant species as roughage resources should be promoted