Napa Cabbage Crisis in South Korea: shortage

In 2010, the price of Napa Cabbages in South Korea was rising because of an unusual long stretch of bad weather. The price had increased up to $14 from $4 per head. Before winter comes, everyone in South Korea buys Napa cabbages for preparation of the traditional Korean pickling called Kimchi. However, in that year, many people couldn’t afford to buy cabbages because the prices had shot up. The cabbages crop in Korea was largely ruined by excessive September rain pushing the prices of cabbages to go up. The Napa cabbage harvest decreased about 40 percent to 151,000 tons. South Koreans usually consume about 1.45 million tons of Napa cabbages to make one year’s quantity of Kimchi every year before winter. Because of the shortage of Napa cabbage caused Kimchi prices to soar, some restaurants, unusually, did not serve it as a side dish. This supply and demand graph shows that that people’s demands stay the same because they will still want to buy regardless of the weather. They still want to buy the same amount. However, the supplies are decreasing from the abnormal weather in September. It has made the price of Napa cabbages to go up. Even though prices have gone up, people were trying to buy it as much as they need for winter. The shortage in supply of Napa cabbage caused a Market Equilibrium crisis in South Korean.

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