▲ Hwaseong specialty rice Suhyangmi ‘Golden Queen No. 3’ variety won the Presidential Award at the Korea Excellent Variety Award

[Global Economic Times] ‘Golden Queen No. 3’, a variety of rice specializing in Hwaseong City, was selected for the Presidential Award for Korea’s Excellent Variety Award.

The Korea Excellent Variety Awards, hosted by the National Seed Resources Board of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs on the 16th, is being held to select and award excellent varieties cultivated domestically to encourage breeders to develop new varieties and to contribute to revitalizing exports.

The 'Golden Queen No. 3' rice, which won the Presidential Award, is a premium rice variety that has expanded the domestic flavor market. It was developed by Seedpia, an agricultural corporation, and in 2021, the agricultural cooperative within Hwaseong City acquired an exclusive license to monopolize it as the 'Suhyangmi' brand. We are producing and distributing.

Golden Queen No. 3 variety quickly entered the market with high consumer preference, replaced imported foreign varieties, and received high praise for forming a new category called flavor in the Korean rice market. It is a variety that is delicious just by eating the fragrant rice. It has an excellent texture and maintains gloss and stickiness for a long time, making it very popular with consumers.

Starting in 2018, Hwaseong City introduced the Golden Queen No. 3 variety to change the image of Hwaseong rice. Because it has a good taste and has strong resistance to drought and does not collapse easily, the number of farmers wishing to cultivate Suhyangmi has continued to increase, and currently accounts for 41% of the rice cultivation area in the district.

Jeong Ji-young, director of the Agricultural Administration and Oceans Department, said, “This achievement is the result of the cooperation of the administration, agricultural cooperatives, and farmers by introducing Golden Queen No. 3, an excellent private variety,” and added, “We will continue to do our best to strengthen agricultural competitiveness by promoting policies to foster local agricultural product brands.” “He said.

Meanwhile, Hwaseong City is investing approximately 2 billion won annually in support for exclusive license acquisition, seed supply support, and brand promotion to cultivate specialized rice Suhyangmi. In addition, we are raising awareness of the Suhyangmi brand by providing cultivation technology training to ensure the production of high-quality agricultural products.

This year, Suhyangmi is expected to produce about 37,000 tons of rice through contract cultivation by 4,160 farmers on 5,594ha and achieve sales of more than 70 billion won.

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