육우문제의 본질과 정책대응

(Problems of Dairy Beef and Measures for Stabilization)

Dairy beef mainly produced by fattening male calf is precious domestic beef resource explaining more or less than 15% of total beef production as of 2011. But the price of newly born 7~10 days old male calf is almost negligible and even cannot find outlet. This phenomenon is not new and has been repeated depending upon the situation in Hanwoo, the Korean native cattle sector. Regrettably, however, no fundamental measure to stabilize the price has been taken up to now. As a result, recently the unsold newly-born male calf began to render significant negative impacts to the dairy farm management mainly due to soaring feed price and environmental problems within the limited space. Consequently, proper systematic not temporary measures to stabilize the price of dairy calf are badly needed. For this, it is desirable to support the price of dairy calf within the framework of Calf Production Stabilization System together with Hanwoo calf. In addition, both independent marketing channels for dairy beef and large scale public ranch for dairy calf are necessary. Also enhancement of beef quality and cost reduction are prerequisite in the era of FTA for dairy beef to compete with imported beef, the strong substitute.