Forum on special measures bill raises calls for full revision of Farmland Act
National Assembly Research Service warns survey must not stop at detecting and disposing of illegal farmland
National farmland management guidelines still unestablished; lease and farmland bank reforms under discussion
A national farmland survey is now spurring calls to overhaul the entire framework of South Korea's agricultural land policy, not merely enact a one-time special measures law. The emerging consensus is that while speculative violations should be dealt with strictly, policy must shift its focus from ownership restrictions to active use and management — reflecting a rural reality in which aging, inheritance and rural exodus have increasingly separated landowners from the people who actually farm the land. The National Assembly Research Service has also said the government must first establish a national farmland management blueprint, rather than letting the comprehensive survey serve only as a tool for identifying and disposing of illegal holdings.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the National Assembly, a forum on the direction of a proposed special farmland measures bill was held Monday at the National Assembly members' office building, where participants debated both how to resolve accumulated violations uncovered by the survey and how to restructure the farmland system going forward.
The government plans to normalize — rather than penalize — conventional violations that arose from inheritance, rural exodus or old age, such as customary lease arrangements and fallow land. Cases involving speculative farmland holdings, unauthorized fallowing or illegal leasing, however, will be addressed in accordance with the law.
Direction of farmland system reform after the comprehensive survey Source: Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs; National Assembly Research Service; Forum on the Direction of a Special Farmland Measures Bill
Category | Key content Comprehensive survey | Assess farmland ownership and use; identify violation types and on-the-ground issues Special measures bill | Strict action on speculative violations; normalize customary leases and fallowing arising from inheritance, rural exodus and aging Lease reform | Legalize existing leases; consider allowing private farmland leases under certain conditions Farmland Act revision | Shift farmland system from ownership-restriction focus to use-and-management focus Farmland management guidelines | Establish a long-term plan covering how much farmland the state will preserve and how it will be used and managed Farmland bank | Expand purchases of farmland from retiring elderly farmers and those passing land through inheritance; supply farmland to young farmers Regional management framework | Strengthen community-centered farmland management through farmland committees and agricultural chambers
Participants at the forum warned that a one-time cleanup of past violations through a special measures bill would not prevent the same problems from recurring.
Chae Gwang-seok, a research fellow at the Korea Rural Economic Institute, proposed a phased approach: use the special measures bill to resolve non-speculative and customary violations identified through the survey, then follow up with a revision of the Farmland Act to build a new use-and-management framework that prevents the same issues from arising again.
Calls also emerged to bring farmland lease regulations in line with reality. Nam Jae-jak, head of Food and Climate, proposed that farmland reform should "keep the threshold for ownership while lowering the threshold for use" — blocking speculative land acquisition while strengthening protections for tenant farmers so that working farmers can reliably lease land and continue farming.
Sa Dong-cheon, a professor at Hongik University, said that given the difficulty of abolishing the constitutional principle that farmland should be owned by those who till it, "if the ownership-restriction approach has so far failed to produce results, I would recommend shifting toward eliminating the incentives for leasing" as an alternative.
Participants also floated the idea of allowing private farmland leases under certain conditions — having existing leases registered during a special measures period to bring them into the legal fold, along with arrangements such as farmers exchanging plots to cultivate each other's land or parents and children of different generations farming the same holding.
An analysis released the same day by the National Assembly Research Service reinforced those concerns. The research service said the comprehensive farmland survey had been rushed without adequate preparation or policy deliberation, contributing to anxiety in farming communities and broader social confusion.
Farmland survey and structure: key figures Source: National Assembly Research Service
Item | Figure Originally planned survey area | 1.15 million hectares Actual survey area | 1.36 million hectares Area added during the survey | 210,000 hectares (18.3%) Share of surveyed farmland flagged as suspected violations | 27% Current share of farmland owned by non-farmers | About 50% Projected share owned by non-farmers by 2040 | More than 80% Share of farmer-owned farmland held by those aged 60 or older | About 88%
When the government launched the basic survey in May, the target area stood at 1.15 million hectares; two months later it had grown by 210,000 hectares, or 18.3 percent, to 1.36 million hectares. The research service said it could not rule out a decline in survey quality and accuracy, given that the basic survey was completed by the end of July as originally scheduled despite the significantly expanded scope.
The research service also said the existing legal framework can no longer adequately describe a farmland ownership structure that has already changed dramatically. Synthesizing existing research, it estimated that non-farmers now own close to half of all farmland. Among farmland held by farmers, about 88 percent belongs to those aged 60 or older.
As inheritance and the retirement of elderly farmers accelerate, the gap between owners and actual cultivators is likely to widen further. That is the backdrop for growing calls to move beyond simply tracking who owns farmland and to also manage who is actually farming it and how.
The research service accordingly recommended that the government establish the "basic guidelines on farmland management" — a framework introduced by a 2024 revision of the Farmland Act but not yet drawn up — to set a long-term national direction on how much farmland to preserve and how to use it. It also proposed a national master plan for transitioning the farmland ownership and use system, along with a community-centered farmland management framework linking farmland committees and agricultural chambers.
Lee Gwan-hu, director of the National Assembly Research Service, said the comprehensive survey "must not be used simply as a tool for rooting out or disposing of illegal farmland," adding that "it is time to think carefully about how the farmland that the state has identified, and that market participants have confirmed, should be managed within a public order that reflects the agricultural structure and production model our society seeks."
Agriculture Minister Song Mi-ryeong also told the forum that the government would "uphold the principle that farmland must be used for agriculture, while carefully examining each person's individual circumstances to find realistic solutions that let farmers continue farming with peace of mind."
She added that "violations driven by speculative intent will be corrected in accordance with the law and principles," while "general violations — such as customary leases and fallowing that arose from inheritance, rural exodus or old age — will not result in penalties on account of this survey."
The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs plans to first use the special measures bill to address accumulated farmland problems, then pursue medium- and long-term institutional reforms including a revision of the Farmland Act and a strengthening of the farmland bank's functions.
adastra@heraldcorp.com
