Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs to Further Reduce Rice Cultivation Area

Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Announces 'Yoon Seok-yeol Government's Agricultural Policy Achievements and Future Plans'
Moon Administration's Excess Rice Sales Led to Continuous Price Decline Since 2021
Yoon Administration Achieves Rice Price Rebound by Purchasing Record Volumes

Jeong Hwang-geun, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, cited 'rice supply and demand stabilization' as the greatest agricultural policy achievement of the Yoon Seok-yeol administration. He self-assessed that while rice prices continuously fell during the Moon Jae-in administration due to excessive rice public sales, the Yoon government achieved a rebound in rice prices through bold isolation (purchase) measures.

On the 8th, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs announced the 'Agricultural Policy Achievements and Future Plans of the Yoon Seok-yeol Government,' which included these details.

The price of an 80kg bag of rice dropped from 217,069 won in September 2021 to 163,071 won in September last year, marking the largest decline ever (24.9%). The ministry analyzed that during the 2021 rice overproduction situation, the previous government excessively sold rice publicly and was passive in isolation (purchase), resulting in a failure of supply and demand management policies, causing rice prices to continuously decline from the 2021 harvest season.

Minister Jeong stated, "From the transition committee period, the government expressed a strong will to stabilize rice prices, implemented additional isolation, and proactively executed measures to purchase 900,000 tons during the 2022 harvest season. As my first policy after taking office, I proposed 'powdered rice' as an alternative to wheat and introduced and legislated a new strategic crop direct payment system to resolve issues in the temporarily implemented paddy field crop diversification support project."

As a result, rice prices, which had been plummeting since the 2021 harvest season, rebounded 16.7% from 161,572 won per 80kg on September 25 to 188,580 won on October 5, immediately after the proactive harvest season measures were announced. The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs plans to manage rice cultivation areas at appropriate levels matching demand, stabilize rice prices at around 200,000 won per 80kg during the 2023 harvest season, and achieve rice supply-demand balance by 2027. To this end, the ministry will increase the reduction scale of rice cultivation areas for table rice to 675,000 hectares by 2027 and will implement bold market isolation if oversupply is expected during the harvest season based on crop conditions.

Alongside this, the ministry expanded the target of the '1,000 Won Breakfast' program, which allows university students to have breakfast priced between 3,500 and 5,000 won at student cafeterias for 1,000 won, from 690,000 to 2.34 million people, a 3.5-fold increase, and plans to extend the program to all universities that wish to participate.

The government set export targets of 13.5 billion USD for 'K-Food+' this year and 23 billion USD by 2027 through a strong export drive policy. In response to the abolition of logistics fees next year, it plans to foster specialized organizations and improve logistics efficiency, and to expand exports of upstream and downstream industries such as smart farms by pioneering new markets in Australia, the Middle East, and others.

Minister Jeong said, "The first year after the new government’s launch was a period to solve numerous challenges such as the international supply chain crisis and to lay the foundation for agriculture to leap into the future. We will devote all our efforts to showing results that the public and farmers can feel, while recalling our initial resolve at the start of the government."

Jung Hwang-geun, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. (File photo) [Image source=Yonhap News]

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