"Increasing Domestic Wheat Consumption"… 300 Million KRW Support for Product Development

Announcement of the '2024 Implementation Plan' for Fostering the Domestic Wheat Industry

The government has decided to provide 300 million KRW in support to companies developing products using domestically produced wheat, recognizing that expanding the consumer market is essential to increase the self-sufficiency rate of domestic wheat.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs announced the '2024 Domestic Wheat Industry Promotion Implementation Plan' on the 28th to enhance the self-sufficiency rate and stabilize supply and demand of domestic wheat.

The ministry established the '1st Basic Plan for Wheat Industry Promotion (2021?2025)' in November 2020, aiming to achieve a 5% wheat self-sufficiency rate by 2025, and has been formulating and implementing annual action plans to carry out the basic plan.

The 2024 implementation plan includes various detailed measures such as expanding the budget for domestic wheat industry promotion (from 40.3 billion KRW in 2023 to 50 billion KRW in 2024), supporting the expansion of the domestic wheat consumer market, creating a production base to increase output, and expanding government stockpiles of domestic wheat.

First, support for expanding the domestic wheat consumer market will be strengthened. Starting this year, companies developing products using domestic wheat will receive new support of up to 300 million KRW per company for product development, prototype production, and marketing costs. A total budget of 2.25 billion KRW will be invested to support about 15 companies.

Additionally, support for milling costs for domestic wheat processing companies (200,000 KRW per ton) will be expanded to 6,000 tons, and interest-free contract cultivation funds to ensure stable raw material supply will also be increased. When providing raw material purchase funds to food companies, the loan interest rate will be further reduced by 1% for those that have expanded their use of domestic wheat.

Alongside this, the number of specialized domestic wheat production complexes will be expanded to 100 to establish a production base, and government support such as discounted supply of high-quality seeds and facility and equipment support for these complexes will be strengthened.

Considering the increasing trend in domestic wheat production, the Ministry plans to gradually expand public stockpiles, purchasing 25,000 tons this year, an increase of 6,000 tons from 19,000 tons last year. Furthermore, a new 'quality management standard' will be applied starting with this year's public stockpiles. To address the issue of low quality uniformity of domestic wheat, the government has developed a new quality management standard since 2021 through research and demonstration, subdividing grades by usage (noodles, baking, etc.). Public stockpile purchase prices will also be differentiated according to usage and grade.

Choi Myung-cheol, Director of Food Policy at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, stated, "Policy support for domestic wheat production has led to continuous increases in wheat output," adding, "This year, we will implement multifaceted measures across consumption, production, and distribution sectors to improve the self-sufficiency rate of domestic wheat."

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