March 8, 2010

  A male student raised his hand. "Don't you just need to import food from abroad?" he replied, flattered, as if simple as that.

  "External intervention," the professor wrote on the blackboard. Students were mesmerized by the meaningful word for a moment. "Our country is a food importer from abroad. We import a lot of food, especially from the United States. There is a price here. A very big price to pay."

  The professor drew a world map on the blackboard and expressed the food coming into Korea from the United States with lines. At first, there were many lines, but the lines gradually diminished as I wiped the blackboard. "When we rely on external forces, we lose our subjectivity. After all, we are at the mercy of external forces." As soon as the professor finished his words, some students murmured. "Why the Juche ideology? Is the professor weird as expected?"

  'Slap' The professor put he's bag down on his desk. "Quiet. I don't like talking students." The professor took a map out of the bag and opened it. It was a very old map.

  "This is a map of the world in the 1950s, five years after the end of the Great War. We have the United States, which has fought many wars."The professor pointed his finger at the United States. He continued the lecture. "In 1950, the U.S. population reached about 150 million. It reached 200 million in the 1960s and 300 million in 2007."

  The professor fixed the tie with his finger. He seemed to be a little disorganized because he talked a lot. "In 1950, the day our country ended the Korean War, we received aid from the United States. We received mainly flour and corn. And as a result, we received foreign food that far exceeded our mainland food production. Eventually, the population itself exceeded its self-sufficiency level on the mainland. The population, which was 20 million in the 1950s, surpassed 25 million in the 1960s, and 50 million in 2013."

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  He wiped the board with his shaky hand. The students were puzzled by the professor's appearance. "… You wouldn't call it a tragedy. We were provided with food aid to people who were starving to death. But… they should have given us just as much food as we could eat." The male students began whispering again at the professor's remarks. "Are you crazy? Why would you pick on the U.S. when the U.S. is providing aid?" One boy even said back-biting over the line.

  The professor wrote the words '2-300 percent' with chalk on the board. The students questioned the words on his board. "This is America's current rate of food self-sufficiency. They have a population of about 300 million, but the corn and wheat they produce in the Midwest can currently feed 600 to 900 million people worldwide. That's a lot."

  The students looked puzzled again. If the truth is the case, then what is there to worry about? However, the professor continued, looking darkly, "Unfortunately, the population of the United States is not stationary. As I said before, the population of the United States has about doubled from the 1950s to the present day. What does this mean?"

  Professor said, "Well, as the population increases, the food decreases. Of course, you can't feel it right away. But... the population of the United States has already doubled in 50 years. To put it the other way around, the amount of food you eat is going to double. In the 1950s, 150 million people could eat four times as much food per person, but today it's 300 million, so it's going to double. If you feed 900 million people with food growth, it's going to be about three times as much."

  The students gulped. "If per capita food goes down, food prices go up, and food sent to other countries goes down. So that means food prices go up in our country as well. And the absolute amount of food goes down, so the population goes down. And if the population of the United States goes from 600 million to 900 million, then their food self-sufficiency rate will be 100 percent, not 2-300 percent. And if they don't have food left, they won't be able to export food to other countries, and eventually our population will be just enough for us to feed ourselves."