Yeoncheon-gun Awarded Encouragement Prize for Excellence in Basic Public Interest Direct Payment Project Implementation

Yeoncheon-gun, Gyeonggi Province announced on the 22nd that it was selected as an 'Excellent Case of the 2024 Basic Public Interest Direct Payment Project' hosted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and received an encouragement award.

Yeoncheon County Office building. Provided by Yeoncheon County.

The selection of excellent cases for the Basic Public Interest Direct Payment Project has been promoted since 2023 to discover and select outstanding cases carried out by individuals and organizations, share and promote them with local governments and the National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service, and thereby foster the improvement and development of the Basic Public Interest Direct Payment Project.

Primarily, a selection committee was formed to evaluate a total of 26 submitted excellent cases through document review, focusing on various cases that achieved results by incorporating innovative ideas during the implementation of the public interest direct payment project and benchmarking excellent cases from 2023. A total of 10 cases were selected, and Yeoncheon-gun received an encouragement award.

The newly selected excellent case from Yeoncheon-gun is titled ‘Promotion of Zero Reduction in Mandatory Public Interest Direct Payment Education and Village Community Activities.’ Since agricultural management entities have been receiving a 10% reduction in direct payments each year due to non-compliance with the basic public interest direct payment requirements, Yeoncheon-gun held project briefing sessions for the town and township officials to resolve this issue. To minimize administrative errors by the officials, they also created and distributed an internal manual for handling public interest direct payment tasks to the town and township officials.

Additionally, an efficient management system was established by linking the New Year Farmers’ Education hosted by the Agricultural Technology Center and item-specific education hosted by the NongHyup (National Agricultural Cooperative Federation). As a result, the achievement of zero reduction in mandatory public interest direct payment education and village community activities contributed to increasing agricultural income and enhancing public interest values.

A Yeoncheon-gun official stated, “Now that a financial foundation has been established for sustainable agricultural and rural development, we will do our best to faithfully perform our role at the forefront of agricultural policy to promote the public functions of agriculture and rural areas tailored to the needs of farmers and to realize income stability for farmers.”