Transition Team: "Supplement Agricultural Direct Payment Blind Spots and Start Disbursement from Next Year"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporters Kim Hyemin and Bu Aeri] The Presidential Transition Committee announced on the 22nd that it is considering a plan to provide basic agricultural direct payments (public interest direct payments) starting next year to cover blind spots where payments have not been received.

Kim Kiheung, deputy spokesperson of the Transition Committee, held a briefing at the committee's office in Tongui-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, stating, "In accordance with President-elect Yoon Seok-yeol's pledge, we will provide relief to actual cultivators who were excluded from the basic agricultural direct payment recipients."

The basic agricultural direct payment, introduced in 2020, is only paid to farmland that received direct payments at least once between 2017 and 2019. Although it is a government subsidy designed to stabilize farmers' income, farmland of farmers who were actually farming but did not meet the eligibility criteria at the time or gave up applying due to low payment amounts were excluded from support during this period.

Kim said, "We aim to improve this unreasonable structure," adding, "Once the new government is launched, we plan to revise the farmland eligibility criteria and secure the necessary budget to ensure that direct payments are made to actual cultivators."

Specifically, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs is currently conducting a survey on farmland that did not receive direct payments between 2017 and 2019, and plans to estimate the scale of eligible farmland and the required budget based on the survey results.

Subsequently, along with amendments to the Agricultural and Rural Public Interest Direct Payment Act, the committee plans to secure the budget through consultations with financial authorities and aims to start providing agricultural direct payments as early as next year.

The Transition Committee also plans to review expansion measures so that agricultural direct payments can contribute to addressing current issues such as public interest creation in agriculture and food security. They will discuss with relevant ministries the pledges to double the agricultural direct payment budget, introduce and expand selective direct payment systems such as retirement direct payments, young farmer direct payments, food security direct payments, and carbon neutrality direct payments.

Regarding the expansion of the direct payment budget to 5 trillion won, which President-elect Yoon proposed as an agricultural pledge, Kim said, "It is understood that this will proceed as planned," adding, "The 2020 budget was 2.4 trillion won, and even after resolving the blind spots, the budget is not expected to be exceeded."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.