South Korea's Large-Scale Agricultural Production in Crisis, Turning to People-Centered Sustainable Agriculture

(Continued from previous text) Similar to Japan, the agriculture and dietary culture of Taiwan, China and South Korea have both faced enormous challenges in the course of modernization. Oh Hyun-seok, Secretary-General of South Korea's Special Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Areas, said in a speech in Taiwan, China that South Korean agriculture has taken improving production efficiency as its core goal. Over the past 30 years, South Korea's agricultural policy plans have adopted the strategies of scale expansion, specialization, intensification and concentration, setting the goal of "agriculture capable of competing with imported agricultural products," resulting in structural transformation.

Oh Hyun-seok stated that under productivism, South Korean agriculture has instead become fragile. 75% of South Korea's food depends on imports. In the 1980s, facing the opening of the global market, problems emerged such as stagnant rural growth, overall declining incomes, and a shortage of young labor. Among the agricultural population, those under 40 years old account for less than 1%; the proportion of those over 60 years old has approached 60%. Currently, the livestock industry also has to face the African swine fever problem transmitted from North Korea, affecting food supply. Agriculture inputs large amounts of fertilizer and pesticides to increase yields, further leading to problems such as overdevelopment and reduced biodiversity.

Sustainability, inclusiveness and innovation to improve South Korea's agriculture and fisheries

To improve the current situation, the current administration has set "sustainability, inclusiveness and innovation" as its new agricultural policy goals. The Special Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Areas, to which Oh Hyun-seok belongs, is directly under the President and was established in April of this year. Its goals are to promote the transformation of agriculture, fisheries and rural areas, and to narrow the income gap with urban areas and address issues such as the aging of agricultural and fishing villages. It has about 30 members, including the Minister of Economy and Finance, the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, the Minister of Oceans and Fisheries, the head of the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, as well as representatives from agricultural and fishery circles, citizens and consumers, and experts from academia.

Oh Hyun-seok explained that urban and agricultural/fishing village development is polarized, so efforts must be made to reduce the gap between the two, for example by using insurance payouts to increase wages for disadvantaged groups in agricultural and fishing villages. In the future, public infrastructure in agricultural and fishing villages will also be increased to improve spaces, and food plans will be established to ensure national food security.

"People-centered" formulation of sustainable plans

For the sustainability part, plans will be formulated in a people-centered way. Oh Hyun-seok explained that new types of agricultural workers, such as female farmers, smallholder farmers, and immigrants from abroad, will also be considered for assistance. In terms of energy transition and food plans, other business areas will also be derived. He added that in the future the central government will only be responsible for providing budgets, while detailed plans will be implemented by local governments.

In addition, there are special committees responsible for other rural issues, such as the Youth Hope Committee for Agricultural and Fishing Villages, aimed at retaining young agricultural and fishery talent; and the North-South Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Cooperation Committee, which builds a North-South cooperation system.

Agriculture in Taiwan, China, Japan and South Korea all faces sustainability issues. The South Korean government supports agricultural development, while other sectors of society also have opposing views. Oh Hyun-seok believes that if people can be persuaded from an ecological environment perspective, the problem can be readily solved. In recent years, South Korea's agricultural participation rate has increased, but young farmers often need to receive subsidies for several years before they can continue. Oh Hyun-seok stated that in the next 2 years, he hopes to improve this by establishing a system through legislation.

Changes in South Korean diet, citizens and farmers saving themselves

In addition to agriculture and fisheries facing problems similar to those in Taiwan, China and Japan, South Korea's dietary structure is also facing the same crisis. Kwak Geum-soon, a member of the Special Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Areas, explained that South Korea's food self-sufficiency rate is only 49%, of which the grain self-sufficiency rate has fallen to 23%. Domestically, the proportion of people who skip breakfast and have insufficient nutritional intake has also increased year by year, while the incidence of chronic diseases has also risen annually.

In South Korea, citizens in various places began early on to carry out all kinds of social movements to protect agricultural food, for example: Daepyeong Village in Hapcheon County, South Gyeongsang Province, preserved local wheat seeds, which eventually expanded into a movement to protect native seeds; farmers established the "Environmental-Friendly Agriculture Production and Consumption Cooperative Council" (hereinafter referred to as Saeng협) in 1994, promoting the government to enact laws and regulations related to environmentally friendly agriculture and fisheries and implementing an environmentally friendly certification system.

Regarding Saeng협, Kwak Geum-soon further explained that farmers, fearing that agriculture would disappear in South Korea, launched a farmers' movement. Every year, thousands of farmers die from inhaling large amounts of harmful substances due to conventional farming methods. Therefore, they went on to advocate environmentally friendly agriculture. In the process of their respective advocacy efforts, they realized that only through cooperation between producers and consumers could agricultural problems possibly be solved, and thus producers and consumers jointly established Saeng협.

Building a food safety net: food education cannot be neglected

Kwak Geum-soon explained that after the global food crisis appeared in 2007, the country began to pay attention to food issues. In the past, South Korea provided much of the public grain rice it purchased to schools for consumption, and even many ingredients were imported, but Saeng협 believed this was wrong, and only then discovered that school meals alone involved so many problems.

At present, in the Special Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Areas, food policy externally hopes to establish a food safety net for the East Asia region, and internally hopes to guarantee the basic right to food in each region and promote local food, taking into account food carbon mileage and environmentally friendly food production methods, and allowing urban and rural areas to coexist in mutual support.

Food plans will differ from place to place. Kwak Geum-soon gave an example: the Mayor of Seoul proposed urban-rural cooperation, providing public meals and matching production areas with cities, creating a link between production areas and cities. She also mentioned that South Korea's leftover ingredients from school lunches are a serious problem, possibly because