Are they brothers? ——Park Ji-sung and Prince Sweet Potatoes.

(Time for original text: 2009-05-20 23:22:12)

▲ World Star： Park Ji-sung (the photograph comes from the homepage of MBC);
▲ And the farmer from Chungcheong Nam-do in Korea: Park Jung-hwa.

There are two 29-year-old young men. One said: “If there is no challenge, there will not be success. Even though I fall down, I won’t fall down on my knees. ” And another young man considers the words from the previous man as an article of faith and always exhorts himself that “I would never abandon farming because I believe that I will succeed in my undertaking.”
The two men are right to be Park Ji-sung and Park Jung-hwa. One is trying his best and has got outstanding performing as a regular in Manchester United Football Club in England Premier League, moreover, he was regarded as “the first footballer in Asia”. And another man is cultivating “the first-class sweet potato” in Yesan City of Chungcheong Nam-do in Korea. Although they two are in different work domains, both of them are modest, capable men with perseverance.
Park Jung-hwa is a man who lives by farming. Although he is only twenty-nine years old, yet his professional technology has been accumulated for more than fifteen years. Because he has engaged in farming for more than fifteen years, he has learned so much acknowledge and practice experience on the farming, so he also knows how to minimize the cost and losses.
In fact, there is another reason for this young man crushing into the farming.
Park Jung-hwa was studying the Computer and Multimedia in his university, it’s just because of the responsibility to inherit carry on the career of his father and the poorer and poorer health of his grandpa who was nourishing the dream of attainment in farming all his life, he needed to bell the cat.
Park Jung-hwa，who has the determination to overcome any difficulties like Park Ji-sung, confronted the millstone and now, he is writing the Success Story by integrating the modern ways of operating and technologies learned in university into the traditional farming technologies, with the aim to following the digital modern trend.

When we arrived there, the farmers are plating the sweet potato buds, and then covering the plastic film on it.
By coincidence, there was deep shadow on the vinyl films and field ridges, and the vinyl films were just like the white guiding line.
I thought the scene was beautiful, so I took a picture.
The sweet potatoes from Park Jung-hwa are considered as “highest-quality” potatoes by the merchants and auctioneers nationwide in Korea. Then let’s have a look at how this young man cultivates his high-quality potatoes.

The process of producing the potatoes:

The characters in the picture:
1. Land Selection: *loessland with sandy soil
*the soil without too much manure
2. The Buds Purchasing:* Mokpo-si(목포시—a city of Korea)

Crops Research Institute
*greenhouse culture
3. The Buds Planting: * cultivating in the form of ridge
* manual working
4. Seeding Lifting: * drill holes in the vinyl film
* pull out the buds with hands
5. Weeds Clearing: * separating 70% of the weeds from buds with vinyl

films
* others of the weeds cleared by hands
6. Harvesting: * using tractor
* notice no harming the potatoes
7. Storage: * Do not place the potatoes in a separate enclosure unless

proper ventilation
* 12 standard kinds of products
8. Washing and Drying: * clean up the cuticle
* bio-far infrared drying and natural air drying
9. Selection: * select by the size and appearance
* according to consumers’ taste and fancy
10. Shipment: * in the form of auction and bidding nationwide
* directly transact in internet

This young man often comes around to Yesan here and analyzes the land’s composition through land survey. The sandy clay generated by the weathered granite is very good for sweet potatoes cultivating. The sandy clay is combined by clay and loess, it is the prerequisite for the good taste of sweet potatoes.
According to the different contents of the loess, many kinds of soil can be used in seed bed, a paddy field and soil conditioning, building the loess house, producing adobes, and so on.
Because this kind of soil has good capability for water conservation, it is unnecessary to be watered very often. So far, there are about sixty thousands-square lands using this kind of soil in about three regions here.
When you are preparing the land for sow, don’t manure too much, because if you do like that, maybe the growing of the root and fructification of the potatoes will be obstructed owing to overmuch luxuriance of the buds and leaves. Anyway, the good quality of the soil is very important.
Maybe, the youth, enthusiasm, and stability are the guarantee for his success in career and living.

During the showing of setting in seeding, like other plants planting, cultivating potato’s seeds and then planting the buds after making a hole is the first step.
Across the country, the best potato’s buds come from Mokpo-si in Jeollanam-do, because the Biological Agricultural Research Institute has cultivated high-quality buds.
The people from nationwide all buy the buds there, about 100 buds compose a band, and we often buy 2,000bands one time, then employ workers to plant buds.

This process is Buds Planting:

In order to plant potato buds, we need to make ridges or furrows, the highest part between the furrows is called ”levee”. The tractor is used to make levees.


* Planting the potato buds:

Planting the potato buds is just like this manual working one by one. These workers need to plant buds with their back one stretch by one stoop. There are also many old people working, they still look like full of spiritedness. Maybe working together for the old people in this city who have no work can get rid of their loneliness.
* After planting, clothe them with vinyl films:

After planting the seeds in the levees, we use the tractor to cover the vinyl films on the levees and furrows. The reason for doing this work is to protect buds from being frozen by hoarfrost, moreover, it can also inhibit growing for weeds, no need of herbicide. Then cover a layer of earth on the levees thickly and adjust the height of covering, in order to protect the buds against the pressure.

* The next process: Pull the buds out of the films:
After covering the buds with films, according to the temperature, about 4~8days later we need to pull the buds out of the films. It’s the time when buds rooting down the earth, and we pull out the buds at the places where there are buds. Then, block the two sides of it with earth to preventing from losing water.
I heard that this process is very difficult, because the weather and the heat going out of the films make people uncomfortable, we need spent several days to do this work carefully.
Besides, let’s give another encouragement to this young man, because he is also so hard working in these difficult works.

* Weeds Clearing:

In fact, no matter how good your films working, the weeds can still grow up. Before the weeds snatch the nutrition from the plants, our workers need to weed quickly, I heard that there were two times for weeding until harvesting.

* Harvesting:

This is the picture for happy young farmer after harvesting the high-quality potatoes. When we harvest the potatoes, firstly, we need workers to tidy the vinyl films up, then, we use machines to clear up the buds of the ripe potatoes. Next, before harvesting, we need to turn over the land, that is to say, we need to plow the land and then we will see potatoes.
The time for harvesting is decided by the situation of land, and in order to get good and integral potatoes, we need work very carefully.

* Storage： Store the potatoes in low-temperature warehouse.
The potatoes need to be stored with the pallets made in oak. After the harvesting, the potatoes are still a little hot, so we need to lower the temperature and keep ventilation in order to prevent the potatoes from becoming rotten. Several days later, molasses will generate in the potatoes, because the molasses decides the saccharinity of potatoes, so this step is also very important. And after the maturation phrase, the original soft cuticle will become tough much.

* Washing and Drying:
This step is supplemented after the consumers’ evaluation. If there is dust on the potatoes, it will be not convenient and uncomfortable for consumers, so we need to wash up the possibly existing microorganism and dust, then filter potatoes with infrared ray, finally dry potatoes with naturally air drying method.
There is not only good effect in cleaning, but also the duration for storage gets longer through the drying process.
It seems to be sure enough that the young generation could understand the consumers’ requests much more and they are easier to follow the trend of the time.

* Selecting Process:
Following the processes above, the selecting process according to the size and appearance could be started. We’ve made ten criterions for the selecting and this method has been proved to be really good method. The young man pays his attention not only on the production, but also on the consumers’ fancy and taste.
He thinks that if we do not pay close attention on the demands and fancy of consumers, potatoes won’t be the welcomed food for consumers’ diet.
Finally, we can believe that every process above are actually all based on their hard-working and their worthy perspiration.

In fact, it is not only very tasty to eat potatoes rare, but also to eat by baking and cooking. Specially, when you eat meat with much adipose, the potatoes could supplement much fiber to help digestion.
The recipe with potatoes includes “Potato Agar-agar jelly”, “Potato Battercake”, “the soap of potato”, “candied floss of potato”, “French fries”, and so on. Nowadays, this young man is making research in cooking potato porridge. In order to make much sweeter taste, he is analyzing the composition of sugar. In addition to this, he is exploiting the “Sweet Potato and Pumpkin Porridge”.
In “spread it thin” ages, many grandmas has many memories about the food made from potatoes, they survive by eating the food of cooking barley mixed potatoes. Moreover, the grandmas’ favorite snacks are dried sweet potatoes.
Finally, for the purpose for promoting the quality of potatoes, this young man is pursuing knowledge and lessons from place to place, above all, he pays twice visits to the great master in Korea in the domain of potato, who is Dr. Lee Jun Seor(이준설) affiliated to Biological Agricultural Research Institute in Mokpo.

Now, what do you think how is the young man like?Anyway, I think this 29-year-old young farmer is “Best Farmer”^^

Characters and Pictures made by: Digital Ambassador—Kim Yeon-Jin(김연진) from Agriculture Forestry Fisheries Information Service(AFFIS).

Text in Korean: http://blog.daum.net/maf2006/13428818
Text in Chinese: http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5fc6d74a0100cw3x.html