Gyeonggi Province is investing a total of 24.1 billion KRW, including 4.5 billion KRW of provincial funds, this year in the selective customized agricultural policy project to focus support on 14 items such as pears, apples, flowers, and rice.
The selective customized agricultural policy project is a bottom-up support program that has been continuously promoted since 2004 to enhance the competitiveness of Gyeonggi Province's agricultural products and to discover and foster regional specialty agricultural products. It selects projects proposed by farmers through a public contest.
Gyeonggi Province selected 40 projects to support last November to December through city and county evaluations and provincial on-site verifications, targeting regionally specialized items and items with high specialization potential. This year, 14 items including pears, apples, peaches, grapes, flowers, ginseng, chives, tomatoes, blueberries, strawberries, rice, soybeans, Korean melons, and chambireum are eligible for support.
Key projects include supporting flower farmers' facility improvements in four cities and counties such as Gwangju City with multi-layer thermal curtains, long-term soft films, LED supplementary lights, and agricultural heating facilities. For the establishment of apple and pear orchards, seven cities and counties including Yeoncheon County will receive support for orchard establishment, sorting centers, cold storage, bird repellents, and protective nets.
Additionally, to improve outdated greenhouse facilities for vegetable growers in nine cities and counties including Yeoju City, support will be provided for shading facilities, automatic openers, mist spraying facilities, multi-layer thermal insulation, and long-term soft films.
In particular, separate from item support, for the first time this year, a farm machinery rental project exclusively for returnee farmers will be conducted in Anseong City and Yeoncheon County to reduce the burden of purchasing agricultural machinery and to establish a stable farming foundation.
Hwang In-soon, Director of the Eco-friendly Agriculture Division of Gyeonggi Province, stated, "We will continuously support projects that require annual support to promote the clustering and scaling-up of regionally specialized items."
Meanwhile, an analysis of recent outcomes of the selective customized agricultural policy project showed that the Namyangju eco-friendly strawberry producers' group increased sales from 3.9 billion KRW in 2021 to 4.2 billion KRW in 2023 by reducing labor through support for facility greenhouses and cold storage.
The Pocheon apple producers' group improved sales from 10.2 billion KRW in 2022 to 10.8 billion KRW in 2023 through support for orchard establishment, pest control equipment, and cold storage.
The Yangpyeong chive producers' group also expanded cultivation area from 85 hectares in 2021 to 90 hectares in 2022 and significantly increased farm income from 14.7 billion KRW to 18.4 billion KRW during the same period through support for facility greenhouses and cleaning equipment.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
