해외농업개발 지역별·대상작물별·유형별 실행계획

Abstract

Korea is the fifth largest food import country, and because of the recent world grain price hike, food security has become one of the most serious issues. Oversea agricultural development is emerging as one of the promising policy options to stably secure foods. Agricultural situations and conditions of foreign countries are extremely diverse which makes it hard to select best place to invest for agricultural activities. It is thus required to establish tailor-made development strategy based on crops and regions. This study examines promising countries and places for producing major food and feed grains such as maize, soybean and wheat. As a short-term strategy, it is recommended to enter the existing exporting countries to secure a certain amount of food crops, meanwhile, as a medium- and long-term strategy, to search for possibility to secure products in such countries as Primorsky of Russia or Ukraine which are now in the process of shifting to market economies having excellent agricultural production environments. Therefore the first step is to select major crops, then to analyze local and regional situations, to determine the step of development, and then to decide the target countries. Wheat is currently produced about 500 to 600 million tons in the world and China, India, U.S. and Russia are the big producers. Import to Korea is, however, concentrated on the U.S. and Australia. Western Australia is considered as one of the promising places for wheat import in the future. Soybean is used not only as foods, but as raw materials for processing including livestock feeds and oil. Korea is substantially dependent on the U.S. for soybean import, and Brazil and Argentine are considered as alternative import sources. The U.S. produces about 47% of all production of maize throughout the world. Korea is the fourth largest maize importer, and Argentine and Cambodia are advantageous for maize importation. Ukraine has fertile black soil and had in the past provided 25% of food crops for Soviet Union. After transition, however, agricultural production has decreased to 70% of 1990 production level. Therefore, it is important to rebuild production and marketing infrastructure for agricultural product export. Short-term strategy is to pursue contract farming with local farms which are in need of capital. To build port and storage facilities is also another task. In the long-term, it is recommended to buy corporate farms which are in financially unsatisfactory in the course of privatization, and, at the same time to look for the chance to expand to other sectors. Primorsky, 0.75 times large as Korean peninsular, has started its sustained economic growth since 2005 owing to efforts by provincial government. Many Korean corporations have made inroads into this area, but are evaluated to fail. Many reasons are alluded, and among them are: different agricultural conditions of production and marketing, lack of understanding about Russian legal system, insufficient human resources, shortage of fund for managing big farms, unsafe social order and private property protection, etc. Farmlands in Primorsky may not be owned by foreign people, and therefore, it is crucial to keep good relationships with local government and people for securing lease lands.