Today's Date:  Tuesday, June 05, 2012

1. GRAIN & OILSEED ISSUES

Ministry of Ag Seeks to Expand Local Soybean Production in Preparation for Potential International Soybean Outage This Year [Korean, OSY]

http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr/economy/2012/06/02/0318000000AKR20120602010500002.HTML

Summary: Korean Ministry of Agriculture announced on June 3 that it intended to achieve 140,000 tons of soybean production from local farms this year as international soybean supply is expected to decline significantly.  To achieve the production goal, the Ministry will encourage rice farms to switch to soybeans as well as helping the soybean farms to enhance productivity up to 20 kilogram per acre.

2. LIVESTOCK ISSUES

Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has announced that no SRM case has been discovered on 11,930 cases of imported beef[Korean, SWY]

http://www.hankyung.com/news/app/newsview.php?aid=2012060106471

3. MARKETING ISSUES

CJ to Lower Prices of 30 “Public Products” by 10 Percent [Korean, OSY]

http://news.donga.com/Economy/3/01/20120604/46758999/1

Summary: Cheiljedang (CJ), the leading processed food manufacturer in Korea, announced on June 3 that it had decided to lower prices of 30 products vital to the consumers by 10 percent on average.  CJ explained that these products are ‘OEM’ products manufactured by small to medium size contract processors, and the reduction in prices, made possible by elimination of markups by CJ, should help the contract processors expand business.