[Lee Hyun-woo’s Crooked Line] The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs’ 2027 Budget of 22.2215 Trillion Won: The Problem Is Not Its Size but Its Reach

Consumer prices for napa cabbage fell 26.2% from a year earlier. Tomatoes dropped 24.8% . According to Statistics Korea’s consumer price trends, agricultural product prices in August 2026 fell 6.7% from the same month a year earlier, and the scale of the decline grew to three times that of July (-2.2%). For consumers, these are welcome numbers. But the first thing farmers say is “Prices are bad again this year”. That is because production costs such as fertilizer and labor have risen, while the prices received by farms have fallen.

In this situation, the government’s proposed 2027 budget for the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs is 22 trillion 221.5 billion won. It is up 2 trillion 85.3 billion won(10.4%) from the previous year, the largest increase in both amount and rate since 2000. If the repayment of 3 trillion 100 billion won in accumulated debt from four funds—the Farmland Management Fund·Agricultural Product Price Stabilization Fund·FTA Fund (Free Trade Agreement Implementation Support Fund)·and Livestock Development Fund—is included, total spending rises to 25 trillion 308.1 billion won, up 25.7% year on year. Considering even the plan to integrate the funds and create an Agricultural Development Fund, the direction of fiscal normalization itself is worthy of recognition.

Restructuring of 2.7863 Trillion Won, with Poor Execution Accounting for 4%
The problem is not the size but the reach. The “list of projects subject to expenditure restructuring” that the ministry released along with the budget bill includes 195 projects, 2 trillion 786.3 billion won, marked for adjustment. By reason, priority adjustment accounts for more than half at 1 trillion 564.5 billion won, followed by institutional improvement at 744.4 billion won, and streamlining similar or overlapping projects at 308.8 billion won. Resetting budget priorities and sorting out overlapping projects is work the fiscal authorities must do.

Ultimately the problem is the remaining category. “Poor execution” was cited as the reason for cuts to 26 items·113.175 billion won. That is only 4.1% of the total restructuring amount. By share alone, it looks minor. But the story changes when one looks at where that 4% is concentrated.

Of the 113.2 billion won in poor-execution cuts, 77.6 billion won is for livestock facility modernization
Among the 26 items cut for poor execution, those related to livestock·farm animals·livestock sheds·forage·and livestock products total 16 items·97.894 billion won. In all, 86.5% of the cuts for poor execution came from the livestock sector. Narrowing it further, the livestock facility modernization program alone accounts for 4 items·77.561 billion won(68.5%). Seven out of every 10 won in budget money that disappeared because of poor execution was money that had been allocated to renovate livestock sheds but remained unused.

In particular, two subprograms under livestock facility modernization loans disappeared entirely. Livestock facility improvement worth 36.8 billion won, and the spread of ICT convergence in the livestock sector worth 30 billion won both became 0 won in the government’s 2027 proposal. 66.8 billion won evaporated in a single year, and the reason in both cases is poor execution.

The details are painful. Smart livestock farming, production-area distribution, and farmwork safety. Budgets in areas the government calls the future or calls safety disappeared precisely because they were not used. Construction of fruit-producing-area distribution centers was reduced from 8.7 billion won to 5.514 billion won, and support for the joint use of logistics equipment fell from 11.068 billion won to 8.48 billion won. Support for attaching lighting devices to agricultural machinery went from 600 million won to 500 million won. It is a project created to reduce nighttime farmwork accidents.

Livestock odor improvement has two branches. From the general account, 3.06 billion won, and from loans, 7.65 billion won were removed, reducing the total by 10.71 billion won. Odor is the largest category of livestock-related complaints and the point at which conflicts with residents near livestock sheds begin. There are also items that cannot be confirmed in the chart. School milk meals were cut by 5.2 billion won, from 35.2 billion won to 30 billion won, and education for returning to farming and rural villages was cut by 2.079 billion won, from 6.082 billion won to 4.003 billion won. The reason is again poor execution.

Money remains not because there is none, but because it cannot be used
The nature of the projects explains why the money could not be used. Livestock facility modernization, where two-thirds of the cuts for poor execution are concentrated, is a loan program. Loans must pass sequential gates—collateral and self-payment, approval of the business plan, and matching local funds—before they count as actual execution. If a farm trying to renovate one livestock building cannot pass those gates, the budget simply remains unused. The spread of ICT convergence in the livestock sector adds one more requirement. Farmers must be able to decide what equipment to install and to what specifications before they can write an application.

When placing these projects on the expenditure restructuring list, the ministry wrote only “poor execution” in the reason column. But poor execution is an outcome, not a cause. If the budget is simply withdrawn without identifying the cause, the transition to smart livestock farming will be delayed not because there is no budget, but because the budget was eliminated. If this barrier is not calculated at the budgeting stage, an increase returns the following year as unused funds.

Income·and management safety nets must be viewed by the same standard. Basic public-interest direct payments will increase from 2 trillion 970.3 billion won to 3 trillion 61.5 billion won, and payment rates for fields in non-agricultural-promotion areas will be raised close to the level for rice paddies. The Agricultural Product Price Stabilization System, which compensates all or part of the difference when the average prices of major agricultural products fall below reference prices, was also newly allocated 9.1 billion won, and quasi-insurance for crops 7.7 billion won. Opening the door to these systems is clearly progress. However, unless it is decided which items will be covered, at what reference prices, and how quickly payments will be made, the execution rate in the first year is bound to be low. In an era when climate disasters have become a constant, these two systems are the last line of defense. A line of defense is proven not by opening its gate, but by making it operate.

Before 210 robots, the environment in which robots can operate must come first
The 2027 budget proposal puts its weight on ag-tech. A new 20.8 billion won was added for the field spread of agricultural physical AI , and the plan includes 15 shared AI farm machinery centers for jointly using autonomous tractors and the like, and the supply of 210 AI agricultural robots. The direction is right. But from the moment a robot enters a rice paddy, what is needed is a smart environment within farmland where the robot can operate, repair parts, and people who know how to handle it. Success or failure in the first year depends not on how many units are supplied, but on whether those robots actually operate in the field.

At this point, it is necessary to recall the precedent of spreading ICT convergence in the livestock sector. The 2026 main budget of 53.425 billion won(general account 23.425 billion won, loans 30 billion won) had been allocated to this project, but because of poor execution, only 14.062 billion won remains in 2027. The reduction rate is 73.7%. Livestock has, in effect, shown first how ICT distribution in the form of installing equipment on farms can come to a halt. There is no guarantee that the 210 AI agricultural robots will not follow the same path.

The indicators to be proven are also clear. Budgets attached to demonstrations of unmanned autonomous open-field production and reductions in fertilizer use must ultimately be evaluated by how much they lower the two pillars of farm operating costs: labor and fertilizer expenses. The number of units introduced is an output, not an outcome. To prevent this technology from becoming the preserve of a few large farms, a design that uses expanding joint farming corporations as a channel is also needed.

Consolidating 109 institutions and creating an Animal Welfare Promotion Institute, the direction is inconsistent
There are also parts that are hard to understand readily. A new 1 billion won was set aside to prepare for establishing the “Animal Welfare Promotion Institute,” an agency dedicated to animal welfare policy, 500 million won for a technology verification system for animal registration, and 3.9 billion won for building a tentatively named Integrated Animal Medical Information Management System to be used for pet insurance product development and other purposes.

On the expenditure restructuring list, there are numbers pointing in the opposite direction. “Overseas export industrialization of pet-related industries” was cut by 4.674 billion won(66.6%) from 7.015 billion won to 2.341 billion won. “Environmental improvement of animal protection facilities” also fell from 1.152 billion won to 833 million won. The reason for both is poor execution. While withdrawing pet-related budgets already allocated because they could not be used, the government added 5.4 billion won for a new agency and a new system.

Article 37 of the Government Organization Act defines the affairs under the jurisdiction of the minister of agriculture, food and rural affairs as agricultural production·livestock, food supply·farmland·irrigation, promotion of the food industry, rural development and agricultural product distribution. Where pet welfare administration fits within that scope, and whether it even requires a separate promotion institute, are questions that must be examined. Moreover, on the 3rd, the government announced that it would consolidate 109 public institutions. That is why people in the field are pointing out that it makes little sense to reduce institutions on one side while creating a new one on the other. Some also argue that what should come first is not an Animal Welfare Promotion Institute, but an Animal Industry Development and Promotion Institute to oversee technology promotion, industrial development, and export expansion.

The focus of National Assembly review is not increases, but execution design
The ball now moves to the National Assembly. This does not mean pet policy is unnecessary, but that the review process must distinguish between what should be handled by the agriculture ministry’s budget and what could be handled by other ministries. Discretionary spending in 2027 will rise 12.3% to 18 trillion 28.9 billion won, and new projects will total 40 projects·1 trillion 755.1 billion won, more than three times the 2026 level(53 projects·530.5 billion won). The number of projects has decreased, but the amount is 3.3 times larger. In a year when new projects are concentrated, the risk of unused funds in the first year grows. For each project, lawmakers must ask about execution-rate targets, self-payment·matching structures, and delivery routes to the field.

Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Song Mi-ryung said at the budget briefing, “In the National Assembly review process as well, we will secure as much budget as possible needed for agriculture·and rural communities so that it leads to changes that can be felt in the field”. What is felt in the field comes not from the amount allocated, but from the amount executed. How large the 22 trillion won was will be shown a year later by the unused amount.