양념채소 주산단지 구조개선 방안

Abstract

고추, 마늘, 양파 등 양념채소는 우리 농업에서 쌀 다음으로 중요한 경종작물이자 소득작물이다. 그러나 대부분의 양념채소 농가는 재배면적이 영세하고 파종 및 수확작업의 기계화율도 낮아 주 수입국인 중국에 비해 생산비가 고추 7배, 마늘 4~5배로 월등히 높다. 이에 따라 DDA 농업협상이 대폭적인 관세감축과 관세상한이 설정되는 방향으로 타결될 경우 양념채소 수입이 급증하고 시장가격은 급락하여 생산농가와 지역경제에 심대한 타격을 받을 것으로 예상된다.

이와 같은 상황 하에 고추, 마늘의 주산지역(주산지 시·군)은 지역경제와 지자체 재정기반이 취약한데다 생산농가들도 영세하고 노령화되어 있어 지자체나 농가들이 자체적으로 경쟁력 향상을 위한 품종개량, 기계화, 선진기술 도입 등이 용이하지 않을 것이다. 이에 따라 시장개방 확대에 의한 수입증가와 가격하락으로 주산지역의 지역경제와 농가에 직접적인 피해가 예상되므로, 피해를 최소화하기 위해 빠른 기간 내에 경쟁력을 갖출 수 있는 산지로 체질 개선이 필요하며, 동시에 경쟁력이 있는 대체작물이나 대체산업으로 구조조정을 모색할 필요가 있다.

이 연구에서는 DDA 농업협상 이후 관세인하가 예상되는 고추, 마늘 등 주요 양념채소에 대한 수입, 가격, 생산, 유통 등 시장개방 파급영향을 분석하고, 특히 지역적으로 품목별, 농가규모별 파급영향을 정량적, 정성적으로 분석하고자 한다. 또한 향후 시장개방 확대에 따른 양념채소산업의 주산단지 경쟁력제고방안과 구조조정방안을 마련함으로써 시장개방 확대에 대응해 양념채소산업의 지속가능하고 안정적인 구조를 조성하는데 목적이 있다.

In Korea, vegetables associated with seasoning process in cooking such as red (hot) pepper, garlic, onion, and so on have been important income source of most rural farm households. However, the scale of individual farm household's crop acreage has been too tiny falling short of attaining scale of economy, and the implementation of automatic machinery process while planting and harvesting is highly limited. Thus, the average production cost of red pepper is seven folds higher than that of chinese red pepper. In case of garlic, the average production cost is four or five times higher than that of chinese garlic. If the international agricultural product trade agreement (DDA) reaches to a certain level of settlement such as huge scale of tariff rate reduction or very low level of tariff rate ceiling limit, it's too obvious what negative impact on small scale of farm households' income or rural economy will be in the future. If mentioning about the specific problems linked to three major vegetables, the rural economies harvesting three major crops across all nation is so vulnerable, and there are too numerous individual households running too tiny scale of crop acreage. Further, the proportion of aged farm households such as over 60's has been majority in the major production regions of three crops in Korea. In other words, the implementation of the newly devised government renovation program might have coped with in depth difficulties due to the mentioned reasons. Thus it's too obvious we could expect the devastating negative impact on the rural economy if the scale of imported agricultural products (three major crops) from foreign countries is expanded and the level of major three crops' domestic prices are drastically decreased. In order to minimize the expected negative impact due to the expanded scale of imported major three crops, the new government policy program associated with renovation and restructuring of three major crops would be a matter of urgency. Also, by the government farm policy program, some farm households are needed to be induced to harvest other kinds of crops which have international competitiveness or to shift into other alternative industries. Main themes of our research focus on the net impact of tariff rate reduction associated with three major crops after DDA negotiation settlement. In particular, expected level of domestic production scale and crop acreage based on different domestic market price condition linked to the level of tariff rate and scale of imported volume from foreign countries are estimated. Further, we performed to estimate the tentative financial value of negative impact on rural economy due to the deteriorated market condition of major three crops. Also, the negative impact was classified by different crops or the different scale of arm acreage (large or small farm). As closing summary, we proposed several alternatives of upgraded farm competitiveness and staged road maps for the successful implementation of government renovation program.

Researchers: Byung-Ryul Kim, Seung-Ji Hong, Seok-Ho Han, Seong-Cheon Seo E-mail address: brkim@krei.re.kr