S.Korea may set aside rice for Asian food programme

South Korea is considering setting aside rice for an Asian emergency reserve programme to help deal with its annual surplus, an agriculture ministry official said Friday.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, declined to confirm a Yonhap news agency report that about 100,000 tons would be pledged next year when the ASEAN Plus Three Emergency Rice Reserve is set up.

The reserve was proposed in 2002 to deal with the possibility of region-wide shortages. China and Japan have agreed to provide 300,000 tons and 250,000 tons respectively.

Subsided farmers grow more rice than South Koreans want to eat, with the country producing a surplus of nearly 160,000 tons annually.

South Koreans' average rice consumption fell in 2007 to its lowest level for decades as people ate more meat and vegetables.

Previously the country supplied some 400,000 tons of rice a year to its hungry and impoverished neighbour North Korea. But the programme stopped as ties between the two governments worsened.

The UN's World Food Programme said in a recent report the North would run short of almost 1.8 million tonnes of food this year.