Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs reviews policy reforms to spread collective farming
Rice added to eligible crops; project scale to expand sharply from next year
AI-based sorting and automation drive push to modernize rural distribution
The government is reviewing plans to raise the minimum farmland threshold for collective farming from 20 hectares to 50 hectares and to add rice as an eligible crop, as part of efforts to address rural aging and labor shortages. The number of smart agricultural produce collection centers, known as APCs, will also be expanded from 115 to 300 by 2030.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said Friday that Vice Minister Kim Jong-gu visited Daecheong, an agricultural cooperative in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, and the Gyeongju APC to inspect collective farming operations and rural distribution facilities.
Collective farming allows agricultural corporations to pool farmland through leasing or equity contributions, enabling individual farming households to participate in professionally managed operations and increase their income. The core idea is to consolidate scattered plots to improve management efficiency rather than having each household farm independently.
The ministry introduced a collective farming expansion support project this year and is pursuing related policy reforms through a public-private consultative body. It is reviewing plans to include rice among eligible crops and raise the farmland threshold from 20 to 50 hectares to promote consolidation and more efficient land use. Officials are also examining ways to link the initiative with the farmland utilization improvement program and to develop concrete profit-sharing models. The project is set to expand significantly in scale starting next year.
Daecheong, the cooperative Kim visited Friday, brings together 28 farming households operating on about 90 hectares of collectively farmed land. Through the ministry's collective farming expansion support project this year, the cooperative plans to install cold storage facilities and agricultural machinery and storage warehouses.
"Collective farming is essential to address the difficult conditions facing the agricultural sector — rural aging, labor shortages, rising production costs and fragmented farmland," Kim said. "We will actively identify areas where related policies need to be reformed."
The government is also accelerating the modernization of rural distribution infrastructure. It plans to expand the number of smart APCs roughly 2.6-fold, from 115 to 300, by 2030. Smart APCs introduce automated equipment into the commercialization process to reduce labor and sorting costs, while using data to manage produce quality.
At the Gyeongju APC, Kim inspected an AI-powered tomato sorting machine and the melon shipping process, and exchanged views on rural distribution policy with officials from the Gyeongju Agricultural Cooperative Horticultural Joint Business Corporation and representatives of eight cooperatives in the Gyeongju area.
"We will actively identify what is needed to consolidate and improve efficiency at the production level, centered on collective farming and smart APCs, and spare no policy support," Kim said. "We will work to ensure agricultural products are produced stably and distribution costs are reduced so consumers can be supplied at reasonable prices."
adastra@heraldcorp.com
