Reducing Agricultural Subsidies Unclaimed Due to 'Lack of Knowledge and Difficulty'... Agricultural Project System Overhauled for the First Time in 20 Years

Next-Generation Agricultural and Forestry Business Integrated Information System Construction Project Passes Preliminary Feasibility Study
Total Project Cost of 144.6 Billion KRW Over 5 Years

[Asia Economy Sejong=Reporter Kim Hyewon] The government is overhauling the inconvenient and difficult agricultural and forestry project system for the first time in 20 years. The goal is to establish an AI-based customized service to minimize agricultural subsidies that farmers miss out on due to lack of knowledge, difficulty, or hardship.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs announced on the 27th that the "Next-Generation Integrated Agricultural and Forestry Project Information System Construction Project" has passed the preliminary feasibility study by the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

The Korea Institute of Public Finance comprehensively evaluated the project's economic feasibility, technical feasibility, and policy suitability, resulting in a score of 0.755, exceeding the suitability criterion of 0.5. The total project cost was estimated at 144.6 billion KRW (70.5 billion KRW for construction, 74.1 billion KRW for operation and maintenance over five years).

Since the integrated agricultural and forestry project information system was launched in 2005, agricultural subsidies have continuously expanded, but frequent policy changes have led to system aging, decreased stability, and data management limitations. During this period, the Ministry of Agriculture’s national subsidies increased to 168 projects totaling 8.1 trillion KRW.

Accordingly, the Ministry plans a complete overhaul to provide AI-customized agricultural and forestry project services to farmers from next year through 2025, and GIS-based work services to frontline public officials. A system to verify subsidy fraud based on big data will also be gradually established.

The system will match basic data of agricultural management entities with eligibility criteria for agricultural and forestry project support, and through AI learning, notify farmers via mobile phones when they can receive agricultural subsidies at the right time. By enabling online and mobile applications and inter-agency service requests, it will provide various agricultural administrative services with a single application (visit), eliminating the inconvenience of having to visit the local community center (farmland) for each service application.

For public officials, the system will reduce workload by automating subsidy eligibility determination, providing intuitive screen designs, and offering work assistant systems.

Additionally, by algorithmically analyzing the history of subsidies and various farming materials provided to agricultural management entities, the system will establish a mechanism to verify actual cultivators, thereby early blocking inappropriate agricultural subsidy payments.

The system will also integrate and link subsidy support histories from agricultural-related institutions and local governments to improve issues of duplicate support or omission of support.

Park Sunyeon, Policy Planning Officer at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, said, "Once the next-generation system is established, it is expected to save 121.4 billion KRW annually through reduced farmer visit times and improved work efficiency for officials."

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