Children cry watching the TV news as a dozen piglets and their mother are shown being dumped into a hole in a farm in a foot and mouth disease - infected area . Internet users are saddened to read the diary of a young man in Paju , Gyeonggi Province , who had to kill and bury 121 cattle because a truck that visited his farm the day before was found to have earlier stayed in a confirmed FMD - infected place . Some 2 million cattle and pigs ― about 12 percent of total cloven - footed animals in livestock farms across the country ― have been culled since the outbreak of the animal disease was first reported in Andong , North Gyeongsang Province on Nov . 29 . A Cabinet meeting yesterday approved the use of an additional 546 billion won ( $ 490 million ) for the compensation of livestock farmers and vaccination of cows and pigs . Another 438 billion won was released in December . While there was no report of new outbreaks these past few days , protests are heard from domestic and international animal protection groups over the live burials of animals by Korean officials desperately fighting the disease . Some bloggers and Facebook users in North America and Europe have started petitions to boycott Korean products in protest against what they call a “ barbaric ” activity . Officials admit that most of pigs in the infected areas or in their vicinity are buried alive because of the shortage of euthanizing drugs . Pigs need larger doses because of their large amount of fat . But they violated the law on animal epidemics as well as the guideline on animal killing for disease control given by the World Organization for Animal Health ( OIE ) . We accept local officials ’ explanation that speedy disposal of those animals was necessary to protect other animals in the still safe areas as the FMD scare spread rapidly across the country . Yet , we have to ask them if they did their best to minimize the emotional impact from the large - scale culling . More emphasis should now be given to vaccination .