농업·농촌에 대한 2007년 국민의식 조사 결과

Abstract

2007년에는 농촌인구의 노령화, 농촌-도시간 양극화, 한-미 자유무역협정(FTA) 타결에 따른 농업 피해대책과 구조조정 문제 등 농업·농촌 현안해결을 위한 논의가 활발하였다. 자유무역협정(FTA)과 세계무역기구(WTO) 도하개발어젠다(DDA) 등 국제통상협상과 관련한 논의 속에 농산물 시장개방 문제가 주요 의제로 다뤄지면서 우리 농산물 시장의 보호 수준에 대한 국민적 합의의 필요성도 커지고 있다.

농업?농촌 문제는, 안전한 식품을 안정되게 지속적으로 공급하는 역할에서부터 쉼터로써의 기능을 유지하는 일까지 전 국민이 직간접적으로 영향을 받기 때문에 국민들의 농업·농촌에 대한 의식과 요구를 파악하여 정책에 반영하는 것은 매우 중요한 일이다.

이 보고서는 이와 같은 문제인식을 바탕으로 2008년 1월 한달간 도시민 1,500명과 농업인 852명을 대상으로 농업·농촌에 대한 국민의식조사를 실시한 결과를 정리한 것이다. 조사 시점이 새정부 출범 직전임을 감안하여 도시민과 농업인의 새정부 농업정책에 대한 기대와 요구를 파악하는 데 중점을 두었으며, 참여정부의 농업정책에 대한 농업인들의 평가도 실시함으로써 이 조사가 새정부 농업정책 수립에 참고가 될 수 있도록 하였다.

The Korea Rural Economic Institute performed a survey titled `Research on the Public’s Conception of Agriculture and Farm Villages’ on 1,500 urban residents and 852 farmers from January 2 to January 25, 2008. According to the survey results, farmers had the most interest and expectations on the enactment of a special law on subsidizing the income of farmers and fishermen as pledged by the new government. The survey results showed that farmers had great interest in income security-related pledges: the two issues of concern with the second and third-highest interest among the farmers were `the enactment of a law freezing the debt of farm households' and `the deregulation of farmland transactions,' respectively. On the question of investment and financing for agriculture, farmers asked for the expansion of investment on ‘direct payments’ (29.3%), ‘farm village development’ (13.7%), and ‘development of non-farm income sources’ (13.5%), while urban residents wished that the agricultural budget could be invested to ‘reinforce the competitiveness of agriculture’ (33.7%), ‘raise the food self-sufficiency rate’ (21.9%), and `secure food safety' (19.1%). On the government's pledge to deregulate farmland transactions, 73.2% of urban residents and 68.5% of farmers agreed while 26.7% of urban residents and 25.8% of farmers stood against it; therefore, it can be said that one out of four respondents wished a careful approach to it. Farmers chose the top-priority tasks of the new government in the field of agriculture and they are ‘preparing countermeasures against agricultural damages derived from market opening’ (47.4%), ‘preparing countermeasures against income instability’ (17.4%), and ‘providing solutions to the urban-rural polarization’ (15.0%). Over half of the urban respondents (57.9%) said that the most serious problem facing rural Korea today is ‘the hollowing of rural villages due to the ageing of rural population.’ Other problems the urban residents were concerned about were ‘failure of food supply,’ ‘environment destruction,' and `safety of agricultural products.’ On the ratification of the Korea-U.S. FTA, a majority of farmers were against it while the opinions of urban residents were varied. Forty two point six percent of farmers and 31.9% of urban residents thought the bill should be reexamined from scratch while 31.6% of urban residents and 24.2% of farmers thought that a referendum is needed to confront the issue. The ratios of respondents who thought the bill should be ratified as originally written were 36.5% for urban residents and 26.6% for farmers. As for future trade negotiations such as Korea-China and Korea-EU FTAs, it was shown that more than 7 out of 10 people think the agricultural industry should not be damaged any further by trade negotiations. The opinion that `the new government should protect agriculture' was expressed by 73.0% of urban residents and 76.8% of farmers. The urban residents thought that ‘safety’ is the most important criterion for purchasing agricultural products, followed by ‘quality’ (taste) and ‘country of origin’ in that order; and 74.6% of urban residents thought the beef imported from the U.S. are not safe. The urban residents’ trust on domestic agricultural products was high as 86.5% of urban residents agreed that ‘home-made agricultural products are safer than foreign products.’ Most of the urban respondents (85.8%) thought that agriculture is still important in the national economy; however, only 39.1%, a decline of 13.7% from last year, agreed to the additional tax payments to maintain the ‘public-good’ functions of agriculture and farm villages. Only about a half (45.9%) of the urban residents who had spent time in farm villages for tourism purposes expressed satisfaction from their stay. Therefore, it is necessary to set up a policy for attracting more urban visitors to the countryside by reinforcing the infrastructure for rural tourism, such as transportation, accommodation, and cleanliness which were shown to be unsatisfactory.

Researchers: Dong-Weon Kim and Hye-Jin Park E-mail address: dongweon@krei.re.kr, frog78@krei.re.kr