hankyoreh

About 250 members of the Korean Dog Farmers Association staged a large demonstration on Sept. 22 demanding that their industry be legally recognized and regulated like other livestock sectors. The association members are also protesting a bill offered in the National Assembly by Minjoo Party lawmaker Pyo Chang-won that would ban the consumption of dog meat. The farmers gathered in Jong-no with nine caged dogs and then marched toward the Blue House. (Kim Jeong-hyo

“I can’t agree with that. Dogs didn’t come from wolves. All the hundreds of types of dogs were made by human hands. They say wolves evolved into dogs and became friends to humans, but it only looks that way because of a repeated learning process. We can communicate with any kind of animal, be it cattle, pigs, chickens, food dogs, or dinosaurs.”

Korea Dog Farmers' Association (KDFA) President Kim Sang-young’s message on Sept. 18 was delivered forcefully. Among the various local farms and merchant associations existing nationwide around the dog meat industry, the KDFA was founded in 2008 as an association for full-time dog farmers, raising an average of 700 to 800 animals apiece according to its own estimates.

There are also some large dog farms raising anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000 dogs. As of Sept. 18, the KDFA estimated its own membership at around 1,800 people. Kim went on to say that while it is possible to communicate with farmed dogs, he does not train the animals because they are intended for a clear purpose.

“With hunting dogs, drug detection dogs, or police dogs, there’s a purpose. Dogs that are intended for meat are shipped at an age of around one year, when the quality is good,” he said.

“How can we sell them when we’re training and communicating with them individually? They’re just livestock. We raise them with affection so they don’t suffer, but the purpose is different.”

While members of other groups are looking into alternatives, Kim and the other members of KDFA remain adamant that changing professions or closing down is not an option. They believe the consumption of dogs as part of culinary culture will never decline, even as other healthy and rich sources of protein surface and a growing number of South Koreans view pets as part of the family.

A 53-year-old surnamed Kim, who raises 4,000 dogs in one Gyeonggi Province city and has been in the profession for over 20 years, says the industry has investment value. Kim, who declined to state the exact size of [his] farm because he “hate[s] promoting disharmony,” sees the situation as a good opportunity to establish competitiveness as a “producer of high-quality dog meat that is hygienic and doesn’t use chemicals.”

Twenty years ago, Kim said, he was paying six million won (US$5,300) a month in interest alone on his debts; today, he has established a large farm with a 23 buildings for housing his dogs, some of which are under construction on a plot of land measuring thousands of square meters. He estimated his assets at “around three billion won (US$2.65 million), although I do have liabilities.”

Kim believes that paradigm shifts, where one industry completely collapses and is replaced by another, do not apply when it comes to culinary culture. By his reckoning, profitability was a sure thing. By the standards of three years before, a single 36-kg dog would produce enough for 100 portions of dog stew; raising three million dogs a year translated into 300 million bowls.

Assuming that one bowl of dog stew costs 12,000 won (US$10.60), the market would be worth 3.6 trillion won (US$ 3.18 billion). Kim flatly stated that there won’t be a drop-off in consumption.

At the same time, if the controversy over the detection of antibiotic residues prompts demand for more sanitary conditions at dog farms, this will work to the advantage of large-scale farmers such as him. Even he thinks that “a substantial number of farms will have no choice but to close,” and this prediction is shared by a majority of farmers. If the consumption of dog meat is legalized, it’s easy to predict that only large-scale corporate farmers like him will be able to expand and manage the facilities required to satisfy those standards.

“Dining culture isn’t a matter of telling people what to eat. If you hang around a dog soup restaurant, you’ll see little kids, too. Dog soup restaurants serve other dishes such as chicken soup, too. Basic trends in dining culture can’t go away in a decade or two. Even if they’re not as aggressive as me, one-third of all dog farmers probably think there’s value in future investment,” Kim said.

staff photographer)

On Sept. 22, over 250 members of the Association of Korean Dog Farming Organizations held a demonstration around Gwanghwamun Plaza and the central government complex in the Jongno District of Seoul. The ultimate goal of the demonstrators was legalizing the dog meat industry. They said that if dog meat culture was recognized and dog farmers were given subsidies like other livestock farmers, problems with sanitation wouldn’t arise.

The demonstrators also disputed the fairness of research findings that antibiotic residues had been found in two-thirds of the dog meat purchased in 25 traditional markets around the country. These findings appeared in an exclusive report by “Animal People,” a Hankyoreh publication specializing in animals. Dog farmers questioned the objectivity and impartiality of the study on the grounds that the main researcher had previously been the policy director of an animal rights organization and that the researcher is not working at a national university.

Kim did not buy the explanation that Animal People asked for a government agency to test for antibiotics but the agency recommended that they instead use a university laboratory because they lacked the variety of reagents needed for the tests. “The tests could have been conducted at Chung Cheong University, where Ahn Yong-geun works,” Kim said, referring to a professor who advises the association.

At the moment, dog farms are not required to pay taxes unless they file voluntarily. According to Article 9 of the enforcement decree of the Income Tax Act, the minimum number of taxable livestock is 50 dairy cattle, 50 regular cattle, 700 pigs and 15,000 chickens, but dogs are omitted from the regulations about income from farming as a side job. Furthermore, income that is below 30 million won a year is exempt from taxation. The office of taxation at the National Tax Service told the Hankyoreh that “there are no grounds for taxing income that is unreported.” “

Dog farmers are paying their general income tax in line with general social norms,” Kim said.

By Choi Woo-ri, staff reporter

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