If I was asked to choose one data that describes Korean agriculture

If I was asked to choose one data that describes Korean agriculture, I would choose this graph. The structure explains almost everything in agriculture. Of course, we don’t draw these graphs in our country. I drew this data from FAO STAT. This means that we don’t make these statistics. This means that it’s hard to compare with agriculture in other countries.

What this graph shows is that about 70 percent of Korean farmers are small farmers with less than one hectare of land, and only about 3.6 percent are farmers with more than five hectares of land. 70 percent of farmers cultivate only 25 percent of all farmland. This means that 3.6 percent of farmers cultivate about 30 percent. It’s a typical developing country type of agricultural structure. Obviously, we’ve never tried to change this structure before. It’s not exactly that. In the 1990s, we started a policy to foster full-time rice farmers. But that’s how it worked.

The second graph is Japan, and the third is the average of the EU. Japan was similar to Korea before the 2000s. Japan is rapidly changing into a European type. Small farmers in any country have the highest number.

Theoretically, the number of farms in Korea will generally decrease to the 30% level after 10 years. That’s the case when you look at the demographic structure. Theoretically, the number of farms in the 5ha, 10ha, or more is increased. I’m not going to increase it because I’m making the argument, or it’ll just remain a fallow. Another possibility is that as the number of farms continues to remain nominally, there will be a gap between reality and statistics. Now, the latter is more likely.
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With this structure, smart agriculture becomes impossible. Climate response becomes impossible. This is because it is a structure that is not efficient for investment. We will continue to fill that gap with the government budget, but it will soon hit its limit. Farm prices are also the highest in the world. It is a structure that is impossible for young people to enter. So even if it comes, it has no choice but to do smart farms. It is a structure that is declining as most of its energy is spent maintaining the status quo.

Instead of trying to figure out why Japan, which is more solid than us, has been trying to change since the 2000s, we headed to the Netherlands. And so we didn’t look at the agricultural structure of the Netherlands, and we only saw glass greenhouses. The Netherlands has about 300,000 hectares of farmland, but only about 50,000 businesses. In Korea, there are more than 1.8 million businesses. You have to register a business to get a subsidy or anything, so there are almost twice as many businesses as there are farmers. Japan is almost three times bigger than ours, but the number of businesses is half as large. And it’s rapidly decreasing.

Why not start an agricultural start-up? I showed you a seed industry graph before, but only companies with less than 500 million sales, which is advantageous for getting a government budget, and more than 4 billion companies are down. The whole agricultural industry is collapsing. And the global agricultural market is growing, and we’re not even getting a business card. I heard that almost 2.7 trillion dollars of new market will be created in Asia, and I wonder if we can discuss the future because we didn’t get any shares here.

But many people know that we are doing well. Sometimes, I am asked to recommend agricultural experts for ODA projects, but I am confused about who is helping who. If I look closely, I think my generation will endure, but what will the next generation do? I am worried about what will happen? Sometimes I wonder what I should do and live my life without paying attention. I am also thinking, “Why do I need to live my life without paying attention?” I just hope it’s useless.