Lettuce thrives in a cooler climate and is usually planted in mountainous areas where it rarely gets warmer than 25 degrees during the summer growing season. But studies have shown that rising temperatures threaten the crop – which in the worst case may not be able to be cultivated in South Korea in the future, according to the news agency Reuters.
Fermented kimchi can be made with other vegetables, but the cabbage-based one is the most popular. However, statistics show that the cultivation area for cabbage in high-altitude areas has decreased by more than half in 20 years. The quality is also getting worse, according to plant pathologist Lee Young-Gyu.
If this continues, we may have to give up cabbage kimchi in the summer, he says to Reuters.
The price of cabbage has also risen by almost 70 percent in a year due to a heatwave, according to government figures reported by the news agency AFP. Climate change is another blow to the kimchi industry in South Korea, which is already trying to tackle low-price imports from China.
