South Korea, as one of the world's top ten industrial powers, has long faced numerous challenges in agriculture.
Compared to East Asian countries like China and Japan, South Korea's agricultural development has been relatively lagging, even behind its northern neighbor, North Korea.
The agricultural production in South Korea can be understood from its geographical location and land use.
As a peninsula country, South Korea is mostly hilly with three sides surrounded by the sea, similar to the climate in Liaoning Province, China, both being in the temperate zone.
However, due to its small land area, South Korea has only a little over 24.5 million acres of arable land, with less than 0.5 acres of arable land per capita, much lower than Liaoning Province's 1.44 acres.
In recent years, despite high agricultural product prices, South Korea's arable land area continues to decrease.
According to data from the Korean Statistical Office, the number of farming households has fallen below one million for the first time since 1948.
The agricultural population has dropped to 2.09 million, with over half being elderly farmers aged 65 and above, highlighting a severe trend of aging in the agricultural population.
At the same time, with young adults moving in large numbers to urban areas, coupled with a decline in the national birth rate, the number of agricultural workers in South Korea will only decrease further.
To encourage farmers' enthusiasm for cultivation, the South Korean government has implemented various agricultural subsidy measures, with over 50% of farmers' income coming from direct and indirect subsidies from the government, making South Korea one of the top countries globally in agricultural subsidies.
However, this has also led to a situation where agricultural product prices in South Korea are generally 2-3 times higher than the international average.
For example, last year, due to reduced production, the retail price of rice in South Korea rose from 12 yuan per kilogram to over 20 yuan, prompting some to profit by arbitrage selling rice to South Korea.
South Korea's main grain cultivation areas are concentrated in the plains and hilly areas of the west and south, primarily cultivating crops such as rice, soybeans, barley, corn, and wheat.
In recent years, the rice planting area has been about 11 million hectares, accounting for over 80% of the planting area of grain crops.
However, in 2023, South Korea's rice production was 3.7 million tons, marking a new low since 1975 for the second consecutive year, compared to 16 million hectares of rice planting area and 5.7 million tons of annual production in 2000, a decrease of nearly half.
Including the production of wheat, barley, soybeans, corn, and other crops, South Korea's total grain output in 2023 was about 4.2 million tons, and its comprehensive self-sufficiency rate in grain has fallen below 20%, ranking low globally.
Therefore, South Korea needs to import over 80% of its food from overseas to meet domestic consumption needs.
In just 2023 alone, South Korea spent over $9 billion importing more than 17 million tons of food, becoming the world's seventh-largest food-importing country.
These data show that despite South Korea's significant achievements in industrialization and technological development, its agriculture still faces many challenges, including inefficient land use, aging agricultural population, and high dependence on the international market.
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