The WTO/DDA negotiations are under way with the aim to reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers which obstruct the 「Free Trade」, and on rice, an agreement for additional market opening was reached in a separate negotiation to expand the tariff rate q...
The WTO/DDA negotiations are under way with the aim to reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers which obstruct the 「Free Trade」, and on rice, an agreement for additional market opening was reached in a separate negotiation to expand the tariff rate quota(TRQ) from 210,000 tons in 2004 to 410,000 tons in 2010 as had been promised in the 1994 UR negotiations.
Furthermore, various bilateral free trade agreements(FTA) are also being propelled, which will surely expedite the internationalization and openness of the Korean agriculture in the future.
A sense of crisis for the future of Korean agriculture is rising by the influence and impact of the full-scale opening of the agricultural product market. However, if we excessively cling to the external factor of the opening of agricultural market when we attempt to find out the essence of the crisis of Korean agriculture and grope for the survival strategies for Korean agriculture, the only method will be to shut the door to the imported products and in this case we may neglect the recognition of and taking countermeasures for the changes occurring inside the Korean agriculture and farmland.
The realities of our farmland as of 2000 is; 89% of the whole farm households 「have not secured the heir of the farming」, and among the households which responded that they「have the heir of the farming」 36%(about 55,000 households) said the heirs are 「non-resident heir」. So the likelihood of the succession of the farming is not guaranteed. This means that in case the current aged operators of Korean agriculture retire, many farm households may be discontinued as a management enterprise and simply disappear.
This is the reason for the assertions that Korean agriculture and agricultural villages will face difficulties from the interior factors caused by the 「aged farm labor force」and 「shortage in heirs」 before the influence of market opening to imports.
the farming scale improvement project」 has an important meaning for the greatest tasks of the agricultural policy that are; to prevent the deterioration of Korean agriculture and agricultural villages caused by the negligence of the current situation of the acceleration of the phenomenon of aged farmers without securing heirs; and to bring up large-scale, specialized, effective and competitive「Agricultural Enterprises」 which will lead the next generation of Korean agriculture.
This study is mainly aimed to analyze the meaning in policy and economic effects of the farming scale improvement project; to grasp the contents and problems of the recent environmental change around the farming scale improvement project; and prepare methods for future development.
The already analyzed various existing dissertations, books and reports related to the farming scale improvement project were collected and analyzed for this study. In addition, the performance of the farming scale improvement project was processed for statistical analysis and the statistic data from the 「statistics on rice production costs」, 「Statistics on the economy of farming households」, and 「Basic statistics on agriculture」 published annually and the 「General survey of agriculture」 published every 5 years by the Statistics Bureau were collected and analyzed.
The suggestions and tasks for development extracted from the results of this study are as follows:
Firstly, the farming scale improvement project experienced several times of policy changes in the policy implementation process to respond to new environments for agricultural policy and agriculture such as the launching of the WTO system, the IMF incident and the additional expansion of market opening regarding rice and DDA negotiation. However, it can be highly appreciated that the basic policy goal of raising competitiveness through the achievement of large scale and collective farming maintained its consistency.
Secondly, it was found that currently chosen 「farmers specializing in rice」 are playing an essential function and role as the main body of rice production. Another remarkable point is that the farmers specializing in rice residing in rural areas are contributing to the maintenance, development and activation of the local society. So they are faithfully carrying out their role as the leader of the local community in various ways while engaging in rice farming.
Thirdly, the economic effects of the farmland selling program conducted from 1990 through 2003 were calculated to be as much as 2,423.1 billion won.
One of the accompanying effects to the farmland selling program is the increase in farm households' assets, and it was estimated that as of 2003 there has been an increase of asset values worth approximately 2,548 billion won.
In addition, the economic effects of the long-term lease program was estimated to reach 1,416.8 billion won.
Fourthly, there is a widespread anxiety about the future and vision of the rice farming due to the surplus of rice supply and fall of rice price caused by the expanded and substantial market opening with the settlement of the negotiation on rice in 2005 and the decision to put the imported rice on the market. With the rapidly changing environment encompassing the farming scale improvement project, the important themes for reviews for the core policies, the farming scale improvement project and the policy for bringing up rice-specializing farmers, which are intended to raise the competitiveness of domestic rice farming, are as follows:
① Reduce the interest on the repayment of farmland purchase ② Reform the way of contract for lease programs according to the forecast of decrease in rice price ③ Support the expansion of management scale through the activation of interim retaining function to be prepared for the price reduction of rice and farmland. ④ Take countermeasures against the fractionation of farmlands and provide the farmlands that are the objects of the farming scale improvement project with some merits in taxation.