Have you ever seen the international price of rice, which has just hit a 15-year high

Recently, a video of a "man carrying food making trouble at the airport" circulated on the Internet.

The man in the video was stopped at the boarding gate because he was overweight with a large amount of food in his hand luggage after taking a flight to South Korea at Qingdao Jiaodong Airport. The man got into an argument with the staff and smashed his luggage on the spot, causing the flight to be delayed for more than an hour.

seems to be a common "machine trouble", pushing a group of "food water customers" born by high price differences into the spotlight.

With the intensification of El Niño and lingering food supply risks, the Asian benchmark rice price hit a 15-year high on Wednesday.

Low self-sufficiency and soaring rice prices have led to a spike in rice prices in South Korea, which is selling for almost three to four times the price in the country.

Under the high price difference, some people take risks and travel back and forth between China and South Korea, relying on "human flesh" to earn profits, and they can earn thousands of yuan in one trip.

"Human flesh" can earn thousands of yuan on a trip to South Korea with food on their backs

Daigou is not uncommon, but most of them are cosmetics, luxury accessories and other products, and now even food has become a resale target.

According to media reports, the "grain water passengers" have a unified organization, and most of them carry grain in the form of groups to take same-day round-trips, mainly at Qingdao Jiaodong Airport, where South Korea has the most dense flights, and now it has also extended to Beijing Daxing Airport and other ports.

Behind the "human flesh" carrying grain to South Korea is the high price of grain in South Korea.

Some netizens shared lifestyle videos on short video platforms show that the retail price of rice in South Korea is as high as US$3.41-6.24/kg (about 24.3-44.4 yuan), which is almost three to four times the retail price of rice in China.

The high price of rice in South Korea, coupled with the cheap air tickets from neighboring cities such as Qingdao and Weihai to South Korea, has made room for the price difference for "grain water passengers".

Taking Qingdao Jiaodong Airport, which has the highest concentration of flights to South Korea, as an example, most of the air tickets from Qingdao to Seoul on December 22 cost less than 500 yuan. With such a round trip, the ticket money will not only come back, but also earn thousands of yuan.

According to media sources, "food water passengers" make full use of the free checked baggage allowance on international flights, first check 2-3 pieces of luggage, and then carry 1-2 pieces of hand luggage on board for free, with a total weight of tens of kilograms to hundreds of kilograms.

According to the above rice price difference, even if the air ticket price is subtracted, you can earn 1,000 to 2,000 yuan for one trip.

There is also an analysis that when you return to China from South Korea, you generally will not go back empty-handed, and bring some cosmetics, so that you can make a net profit of more than 4,000 for a round trip. As long as you fly 4 or 5 times a month, you can earn a small 20,000 yuan.

Low self-sufficiency and excessive trade protection South Korea's food inflation is high

Since the beginning of last year, inflation in South Korea has been on an upward trend, especially with food prices rising significantly. South Korea's CPI rose 3.3% year-on-year in November, remaining at around 3% for four consecutive months. Among them, agricultural products rose by 13.6%, the largest increase since May 2021, pushing up overall prices by 0.57 percentage points.

Further, South Korea's high food inflation is related to its low self-sufficiency rate and excessive trade protection.

Constrained by geographical disadvantages, South Korea's per capita cultivated land area is only 0.6 mu, and the grain self-sufficiency rate is too low. In 2000, the country's food self-sufficiency rate was 30.9%, but in 2020 it fell to 19.3%.

South Korea's rice output is expected to be 3.684 million tonnes this year, down 2.1% year-on-year, according to media reports. The remaining rice stocks this year are about 77 000 tonnes, about 42 percent less than the 133 000 tonnes in the past decade.

The decline in production has prompted South Korea to protect its agriculture by implementing higher import tariffs and other agricultural protection measures for agricultural development. Wang Lei, director and professor of the Department of International Development Cooperation, School of International Economics and Trade, Shandong University of Finance and Economics, pointed out that:

As a peninsula country dominated by mountainous terrain, South Korea's geological environment determines the inherent disadvantages of agricultural development, coupled with a large loss of labor force and serious aging, resulting in low agricultural productivity and long-term supply of agricultural products can not meet domestic demand. However, South Korea's long-standing agricultural protection measures, such as high import tariffs, have been imposed to protect its own industry, which has further exacerbated the predicament.

As a grain importer, South Korea's food prices fluctuate greatly due to the constraints of the external environment.

Recently, Asian rice prices hit a 15-year high amid growing concerns about increased demand for rice and the impact of the El Niño phenomenon that will further tighten rice supplies.

The Asian benchmark rice price, the 5 percent broken Thai white rice price, rose 2.5 percent from the previous week on Wednesday to $650 a tonne, the highest level since October 2008, according to the Thai Rice Exporters Association.

The most recent time rice prices reached this milestone was in early August, when India, the world's largest rice exporter, imposed massive export restrictions and dry weather threatened Thailand's rice harvest. This was followed by a pullback in rice prices for most of September and October, but began to accelerate again in November.

Chookiat Ophaswongse, Honorary President of the Thai Rice Exporters Association, said:

Considering lingering food safety concerns and India's ban on rice exports, rice prices are expected to remain at fairly high levels until early next year.

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