[Lee Hyun-woo's Slant] Farmland Census, Paddy Soybeans, Mutual Prosperity Fund... Why Farmers Do Not Trust Government Policy

In the autumn of 2026, rural communities are unusually unsettled. In every village, suspicions circulate over the government’s comprehensive farmland survey, with people asking “isn’t this ultimately meant to take away our land?” Livestock farmers are protesting the government’s renewed discussion of joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), saying “the government has already decided to join and is only pretending to collect opinions.” That is why farmers’ groups have taken a hard-line response, including announcing a large-scale rally in Seoul on October 15.

Even in the impact analysis released by the government on September 29, if Korea joins CPTPP, production in agriculture, forestry and fisheries will decline each year by 852.3 billion won, including agriculture 710 billion won, forestry 60.6 billion won (both from the Korea Rural Economic Institute), and fisheries 81.7 billion won (Korea Maritime Institute) over the 15 years after the agreement takes effect. This contrasts with the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy’s view that real GDP will be 0.38 percentage points higher 10 years after implementation than it would be without joining. The government says it will “prepare sufficient supplementary measures,” but not many farmers believe that statement. The first thing farmers question when they hear a government announcement is not the content of the policy. It is when this policy will be reversed.

 

Policy for alternative crops in paddies scrapped every 3 years, leaving farms to bear investment costs

Farmers’ distrust is not a vague feeling but comes from experience. A representative example is the ‘cultivation of alternative crops in paddy fields’ policy, which encouraged planting crops other than rice in paddies. The government began the Paddy Income Base Diversification Project in 2011, saying it would address the rice surplus, but scrapped it after 3 years. From 2014 to 2017, no central-government budget was allocated for direct support for cultivating alternative crops. In 2018, the program was restarted under the name ‘Rice Production Adjustment Program’ (support program for cultivating alternative crops in paddies), only to be ended again after 3 years.

Farms that trusted the government, repaired drainage facilities and brought in soybean harvesters had to leave their equipment idle or return to rice farming when the project was cut off. In 2021 and 2022, the government signed agreements with local governments to reduce rice cultivation area and provided participating farms with indirect incentives such as additional allocations of public stockpile rice, and farm financing support. Policies change every 3 years, but farmers have to repay investment costs over several years.

The case of soybeans grown in paddy fields is even more serious. Through the ‘Strategic Crop Direct Payment Program’ implemented in 2023, the government actively encouraged the cultivation of paddy soybeans·forage crops and the like. Then in 2025, it officially implemented the rice cultivation area adjustment program and pushed for a total reduction of 80,000 ha . But when paddy soybean acreage increased and a drop in soybean prices became a concern, in 2026 the government maintained its rice reduction target while creating a new system to provide direct payments for ‘rice for supply-demand adjustment’. It even considered incentives that would give priority allocation of government-supplied seed varieties to farms that had been planting soybeans if they returned to rice. In effect, the same government that just 1-2 years earlier said “plant soybeans instead of rice” is now saying “we will give you benefits if you plant rice instead of soybeans.” The farms that followed the government’s words most faithfully were the first to suffer losses.

 

Mutual Prosperity Fund: 325.5 billion won over 10 years, only 32.6% of target

The same applies to the promise to share the benefits of market opening with agriculture. In 2015, when the National Assembly ratified the Korea-China Free Trade Agreement (FTA) , the political community created the Agriculture and Fisheries-Rural Communities Cooperation Fund as an alternative to a trade gains-sharing system. It promised to raise a total of 1 trillion won over 10 years, at 100 billion won each year. However, the amount collected from 2017 through July 2026 was 325.5 billion won, only 32.6% of the target. Even then, contributions from private companies (153.28 billion won) were smaller than those from public institutions (171.47 billion won). The government decided to contribute 200 billion won for the first time in its 2027 budget proposal. This came after the president, during a Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs work report on July 16, instructed the government to contribute first. A promise that the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy had failed to keep for 10 years barely moved after a single word from the highest authority.

 

Anxiety over farmland survey does not subside despite numerous explanations

The distrust on the ground toward the comprehensive farmland survey that began with a word from the president is in the same context. At a Cabinet meeting last February, the president ordered a comprehensive survey of farmland not being farmed and a review of compulsory sale orders. In May, the Farmland Act was revised so that disposal orders by local governments changed from discretionary to mandatory, and on the 18th of the same month, a comprehensive survey of 1.95 million ha of farmland nationwide began for the first time since the founding of the Republic of Korea. When the basic survey in July classified 2.84 million parcels, or 27% of the surveyed lots, as suspected violations, rural communities were stirred up. Concerns poured out that even land entrusted to neighbors because elderly owners could no longer farm it, or land inherited together with siblings, might become subject to disposal.

In response, at a party-government consultation on September 21 the government announced a plan to enact a special measures act, saying customary violations that were not speculation would not be disposed of but would be normalized·legalized. Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Song Mi-ryung posted on Facebook on September 28 that “there are too many things that have been incorrectly reported, and the process of misunderstandings caused by this being reproduced is repeating,” and on September 30 she held a meeting with village heads in Namwon, North Jeolla Province, stressing that “farmers do not need to worry about the farmland survey.”

From September 16 to October 2, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs issued 7 explanatory materials related to the farmland survey and rebuttals to media reports. That means it offered an explanation about once every two and a half days. Even so, anxiety on the ground has hardly subsided. 

The government repeatedly states that “the principle of distinguishing between speculation and ordinary violations was clear from the beginning,” but one economic newspaper called it a “U-turn after 7 months,” and farmers accept this change as yet another policy reversal. Just a week before the minister said there was no need to worry, the president wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that “all governments avoided this because of resistance and backlash, but I will not avoid it.”

Which words are farmers supposed to believe? The special measures act that would serve as the basis for normalization has not even crossed the threshold of the National Assembly. No matter how many explanatory materials pile up, until it is confirmed in law it is merely another ‘promise that can change’ for farmers.

 

You make money by doing the opposite of what the government says

As this repeats, a bitter saying circulates in rural communities. A paddy soybean farmer in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, identified as A, said “you make money by doing the opposite of what the government tells you to do.” It is an empirical rule that the crops the government says to reduce instead rise in price, while the crops it says to increase fall in price a few years later because of oversupply. Among farmers, this phrase has become not a joke but a survival strategy. As more farmers read policy signals in reverse, supply-demand policies lose effectiveness, the government brings out stronger prescriptions, and farmers become even more suspicious, continuing a vicious cycle.

 

Proposals for restoring trust in policy

To regain trust in policy, the government must change first.

First, policies that require facility investment, such as crop conversion, should have support guaranteed by law for 5 years or more. Sunset criteria and exit strategies should be disclosed from the start so that projects cannot be scrapped depending on budget circumstances or that year’s crop conditions.

Second, when changing a policy, transitional measures for existing participating farms should be made mandatory. Farms that invested because they trusted the government must not be left to shoulder the cost of policy changes alone.

Third, supply-demand policy should not be a year-by-year stopgap but should be designed within a medium- to long-term supply-demand plan that considers major crops such as rice·soybeans·and wheat together. If increasing soybeans leads to a surplus of soybeans and reducing rice leads to a shortage of rice, it means policies were issued without a plan.

Fourth, sharing the benefits of market opening is not something that should be left to corporate goodwill. To ensure the government’s 2027 contribution does not end as a one-off, trade gains-sharing should be institutionalized and the scale of resources and their uses should be specified in law.

Fifth, policies that shake farmers’ lives should be made together with the field from the design stage. Trust cannot be gained through a method like the farmland survey, in which the conclusion is thrown out first and explanations and supplementary measures are poured out only after resistance grows. The special measures act that has not yet crossed the threshold of the National Assembly should first be clearly handled within the year, and the presidential office and the competent ministries must speak with one voice.

Agriculture does not end with a single year’s farming. Before sowing seeds, farmers buy machinery, improve the land, and create sales channels. That is why, for farmers, policy must be a promise made with several years ahead in mind. Unless the government consistently shows that it keeps its promises, farmers will not trust it no matter what supplementary measures it presents. Trust is not created by explanatory materials, but by the accumulation of promises kept.