Nonghyup to Overhaul Organization, Operations by June Next Year
-Move aimed at pushing 'New Farm and New Nonghyup' campaign

Nonghyup decided to overhaul its organization and operations in order to promote the 'New Farm and New Nonghyup' campaign at a meeting of its representatives on Nov. 25.
Under this plan, the organization, personnel and decentralization reform committee will take charge of all matters related to reform objectives based on the amended Nonghyup Law ranging from personnel, and organizational matters. The committee will in return set up the management strategy group to deal with expert matters related to the overhaul project. Among others, the committee will deal with matters related to personnel, organization and governance, the renovation of Nonghyup and the reorganization of all Nonghyup units down to the city and county level units.
Nonghyup will launch its exclusive wholesale organization establishment promotion unit to reform its distribution channel by entering the wholesale market. The wholesale unit will ultimately supply farm and dairy products to E-Mart and Carrefour and other large wholesale chains including its own Hanaro Mart.
The "Love Farm" campaign put together and pushed by the National Agricultural Cooperatives Federation (Nonghyup) and five major economic organizations last December to help agriculture and farm villages suffering from the onslaught of imported farm produce and the opening of the domestic rice market is on the verge of expanding across the country and become a pan-national campaign with various social organizations participating in the movement. Deputy Prime Minister and Finance and Economy Minister Lee Hun-jai participated in the gathering in which Nonghyup and the five economic organizations, along with some 700 representatives of various levels of society launched the Pannational Movement Headquarters for Love Farm on Oct. 25.
DPM Lee, in his speech, called on all nationals to join in the campaign to revive farms, and the government will do all it can to help the campaign to develop into a national movement that would lead to farmers loving consumers and businesses and consumers loving farmers in return.
Nonhyup Chairman Chung Dae-kun, in his opening speech, hoped that the love farm campaign would be developed into a city-farm live and let-live national movement devoted to health and lively farm regions through a love sharing practice movement with the participation of farmers, consumers, organizations and groups.
Kang Shin-ho, chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), said the FKI plans to broaden its exchanges with farm regions to show them the methods of adopting advanced technologies to farms to boost valued-added incomes and expand the consumption of domestic farm produce.
The love farm campaign had its initial start in December last year at a ceremony attended by President Roh Moo-hyun, the heads of the five economic organizations, Nonghyup chairman, farmers and citizens at the Nonhyup logistics plaza in Yangje-dong, southern Seoul. It got its official boost when Nonghyup and the five economic organizations signed a cooperative agreement on the love farm campaign on June 8.
As of Oct. 15, 623 cases of cooperation between business firms and farm villages were signed. Business firms would buy farm produce produced by their sister farm villages for their in-house dining facilities and they would buy gift items from those villages. They would also lend hands during farming seasons, protect the environment, provide medical care, provide for the repair of home appliances and farming machinery to help farm villages and raise the public images of business firms.
Farm villages, on the other hand, have been undertaking many programs to show corporate people how to broaden their understanding of farm life by spending time on farms and by providing them with fresh farm produce on a steady basis.
A cooperative tie-up under the love farm campaign between Samsung Electro-Mechanic, a member of the FKI, and Togomi village in Hwachon, Gangwon Province is a successful symbol of the cooperative relationship between a first-rate company and a first-class farming village. The company bought rice from the village and gave them to destitute families, raising its corporate do-gooder image to farms.
At the same time, the Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) on Oct. 13 signed a cooperative agreement with Nonghyup under the love farm campaign. The Gwangju branch of the giant utility company signed a sisterhood tie up with Mukap-ri village and as a service, it inspected the electric poles and other power facilities in the village at no charge and villagers, in return, gave the KEPCO branch bags of red peppers as a token of appreciation.
KEPCO's 267 social service teams around the country signed a tie-up agreement with a village and inspected a farm house's power facilities and repaired them in addition to lending hands during farming seasons, purchasing farm produce and engaging in activities to protect environments in farm regions.
The love farm campaign headquarters will try to broaden the understanding of farm life to the general public to let them join the love farm campaign and sign a cooperative tie-up with a farm village on one company and one farm village relations so that city dwellers would find their second home in farm villages and the love farm campaign would take its root as a pan-national movement. nw