Assemblyman Seo Samsuk: "No Farmland in the Ministry of Agriculture's Food Self-Sufficiency Plan"

When Setting Food Self-Sufficiency Goals, Cultivated Area Not Reflected...Urgent Need for Securing Arable Land

[Sinan=Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Choi Jae-kyung] The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs has been criticized for setting food self-sufficiency rate targets without separately reflecting the cultivation area of crops, resulting in a haphazard policy that sets goals without any means.

According to the data on ‘Food Self-Sufficiency Targets and Estimates of Production and Farmland Area’ submitted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs to Seo Sam-seok, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea (Yeongam, Muan, Sinan), on the 23rd of last month, it is stated that ‘cultivation area is not separately reflected in estimating the self-sufficiency rate targets.’

This aligns with the reality that there is no concrete plan to secure the farmland area necessary to achieve the food self-sufficiency targets.

The food self-sufficiency targets set by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs in 2018 for 2022 for rice, barley, wheat, and soybeans are 55.4%, with a production target of 5.21 million tons.

Since 4.9 tons of food crops were produced per hectare in 2019, approximately 1.06 million hectares of farmland are expected to be needed to achieve the production target in 2022.

Given that the cultivated area for food crops in 2019 was about 900,000 hectares, an additional 160,000 hectares of farmland must be secured; however, among the nine projects proposed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs as measures to increase the food self-sufficiency rate, there are virtually no direct measures to expand the cultivation area for food crops.

The only project contributing to increased soybean production through the cultivation of other crops in paddy fields had a budget of 55 billion won in 2020, but it was completely cut in the 2021 government budget proposal.

This contradicts the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs’ promotion in March that all soybeans produced by cultivating other crops would be purchased, which may end by 2020.

A budget of 1 billion won for a survey on idle farmland to identify and utilize idle farmland was included in the 2021 government budget proposal for the first time in eight years, but the maximum restoration area is planned to be around 40,000 hectares.

Assemblyman Seo Sam-seok said, “The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs’ policy response to food self-sufficiency, which has been raised as a core agricultural policy task from the perspective of national security after COVID-19, is too complacent,” and added, “Urgent measures must be prepared to secure farmland area to achieve the self-sufficiency targets.”