The seasonal worker programme, run by the agriculture and justice ministries, brings in foreign labour for short stints timed to planting and harvest. Local governments sign agreements with counterpart authorities in sending countries to allocate quotas, and allocations have grown steadily in recent years.

Housing is the recurring complaint. After cases surfaced of makeshift structures inside greenhouses or shipping containers being used as dormitories, the government tightened accommodation standards and barred substandard lodgings from allocations. Farmers, for their part, say securing compliant housing is a burden.

Wages and hours are also contested. Agriculture is partly exempt from the Labour Standards Act's provisions on working hours, breaks and holidays, which makes disputes over actual hours and pay more likely. Labour groups want the exemption revised; growers urge caution, citing seasonality and weather.

The issue is not remote for Korea's Chinese community. Many ethnic Korean-Chinese and Chinese-background workers are employed in farming and fisheries, and language barriers mean some begin work without fully checking their contracts. Municipal foreign-resident support centres and labour ministry hotlines offer multilingual counselling.

Hwagyo Sibo blames neither growers nor workers. The confirmed facts: allocations have risen, housing standards have been tightened, and the farm-hours exemption remains disputed. We leave the judgment to readers.