Rep. Lee Byung-suk of the ruling Saenuri Party has been doing all he can leading the legislative effort to exempt the agricultural businesses operated by the National Agriculture Cooperatives Federation from the Fair Trade
Law. “Its NACF’s top value to give the best value to the farmers through joint purchase and joint sale of farm produce and this value should be saved till the end so that they would not be hurt by the Fair Trade Law,” said the legislator from Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province and former vice speaker of the National Assembly, at an interview with media reporters, always modest in his demeanor, but passionate when it comes to dealing with the issues related to the farm communities in the country. Rep. Lee has been named as the chairman of the 20-man Political Reform Committee of the National Assembly on March 17 made of both ruling and opposition parties legislators and whose responsibilities would include the redrawing of the parliamentary election districts all over the country and other political matters that need to be reformed. The legislator led the passage in the National Assembly of the bill exempting the purchase and sales businesses and financial support provided by the NH Economics Holdings Co. from the application of the Fair Trade Law by revising the law. The bill to revise the law seemed as though it will be withheld at the Judiciary Committee, but Rep. Lee, a member of the committee persuaded the fellow members that joint purchase and sales are the main job of NACF and if they were subjected to the Fair Trade Law, both farmers and consumers would get hurt as the production costs for farm produces would climb higher. As a result the revision proposal got the approvals from both the committee and later at the plenary session of the National Assembly. The passage of the bill gave NACF a big lift as it came at the time when it is about to change its main job to selling farm produces. Rep. Lee apparently felt that if the bill failed to pass the parliament, NACF’s economics holding company’s operation would be restricted and at the same time, damaging the interest of member farmers. He recalled that his experiences of having seen the NACF’s operation right at the jobsite had been of great help in his persuasion of the fellow members of the Judiciary Committee to pass the bill.
Rep. Lee’s election district, the north Pohang has been seeing its farm lands being lost rapidly to the industrial projects. But the legislator has been busying himself to take care of the moves to build a systematic agricultural and industrial complexes and environment friendly livestock industrial clusters to find the areas that need such clusters and complexes travelling around the country connect them with government policies to keep them and let them grow.
The legislator has been showing a great interest in keeping the forests around the country green through legal means. He has been preparing to legislate the bill for protection of pine trees by revising the existing the Special Law for Pine Wilt Disease Control.
The revision includes such items as the National Forest Service to set up a national center for control of the pine wilt disease by monitoring the pine wilt disease all around the country. The center will take proper measures to prevent the disease spreading around the country if it show the signs of spreading, the introduction of the regulation to strengthen the pine wilt disease control and the measures to punish the companies or individuals for neglecting their duties to prevent the pine wilt disease from spreading.
The legislator regretted that the pine wilt disease has been spreading further around the country despite the efforts to prevent it from spreading using hundreds of million won in expenses every year. The disease was confined to the Gyeongsang Provinces including Pohang in 2013, but it has been spread to other areas including Jeju Island, southern and eastern coastal regions affecting the pine trees in those areas altogether 74 cities, counties and wards. He also went over every detail of the government measures to protect the agricultural sector from the free trade agreement with China at the National Assembly to make clear that no farm would be done to the farmers as China has a thriving agricultural sector with its weather about the same as Korea’s. 
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