Imsil-gun, No Disadvantage to Residents Cooperating in Public Projects... Solution Draws Attention

[Imsil=Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Nosik] Imsil County, Jeonbuk, is attracting attention by presenting a ‘citizen-centered’ administrative model as it comes up with a solution to ensure that farmers who actively cooperated with public interest projects do not suffer disadvantages.

The county announced on the 24th that it has decided to pay direct payments to cultivator residents who lost their ownership rights and thus became ineligible for public interest direct payments due to unavoidable land inclusion during the creation of Osu 2nd Agricultural Industrial Complex.

The county viewed imposing disadvantages rather than benefits on farmers cooperating with public interest projects as a form of regulation and thus proposed this solution.

Osu 2nd Agricultural Industrial Complex began compensation work for the included land from January last year, and through active administrative efforts and the cooperation of local residents and landowners, it received designation and approval as an agricultural industrial complex on the 7th of last month, achieving a significant result with over 95% compensation agreement currently reached.

The Osu 2nd Agricultural Industrial Complex covers a total area of 171,412㎡, including 74 parcels of farmland totaling 121,476㎡ in the second phase project district.

The public interest direct payment system is a program that provides subsidies to farmers to promote public interests such as environmental conservation, maintenance of rural communities, and food safety through agricultural activities.

Applications were accepted at the township and town offices where the farmland is located from April to last month, and after verification by farmland officials, recipients of the public interest direct payments will be selected and registered in October, followed by payment of the direct payments.

At last year’s residents’ briefing session, the county guided that anyone within the project area could fairly cultivate farmland for one year, considering the construction schedule.

However, a problem arose. Farmers within the Osu 2nd Agricultural Industrial Complex inclusion area were excluded from the public interest direct payment recipients because their ownership had been transferred.

This caused a situation where farmers who cooperated with the public interest project suffered disadvantages.

The county made various efforts to ensure they would not be disadvantaged.

Following a request for system improvement to the Small and Medium Business Ombudsman last year, this year the county also sought advice from its legal counsel and submitted proposals to the Regulatory Reform Hotline of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, receiving multiple opinions.

Accordingly, the project department, farmland department officials, and direct payment recipient farmers gathered at the Osu Township Office to enable guidance so that disadvantaged farmers could receive direct payments.

The county plans to pay a total of 9.7 million KRW this month to 15 cultivator residents within the Osu 2nd Agricultural Industrial Complex.

County Governor Shim Min said, “Through this case of direct payment, I hope the direct payment system will be fairly applied to farmland within land included in public interest projects,” adding, “We will continue to make more meticulous efforts toward citizen-centered administration.”