농업·농촌에 대한 2009년 국민의식 조사 결과

Abstract

2009년 한 해는 새 정부의 농업정책이 본격 시행된 시기로 많은 분야에서 변화가 있었으며, 특히 우리 식품의 세계화와 농산물 수출, 농협개혁 등 중점 개혁 과제들이 각계의 참여와 다양한 논의를 거쳐 방향을 잡고 일부 성과를 이루기도 하였다. 한편으로 농자재 가격 상승에 따른 생산비 증가와 쌀 재고 증가로 인한 수확기 산지 쌀 가격 하락으로 농가들이 경영난을 호소하면서 경영안정 대책마련을 위한 논의도 활발하였다. 한국농촌경제연구원은 이같은 농업정책 기조 변화와 농가경영 상황을 감안하여 농업·농촌 현안에 대한 여론과 변화된 정책수요를 파악하고자 여론조사를 실시하였다. 이 연구보고서는 새정부가 출범한 이후 지난 2년간 시행된 농업정책 방향에 대해 국민들은 어떻게 평가하고 있고 새로운 정책수요는 무엇인지 파악하기 위해 작성되었다. 또, 소비자인 도시민의 농업·농촌에 대한 수요를 찾아내고 생산자인 농업인의 농업·농촌 문제 인식과 의식변화를 살펴보았다. 이번 조사는 2009년 10월과 11월 도시민 1,500명 농업인 2,000명(906건 회수)을 대상으로 도시민은 방문면접을, 농업인은 우편조사를 실시하였다. 특히 이번 조사에는 농업계와 비농업계 전문가 64명을 우편 조사해 균형있는 여론 형성과 조사결과의 실효성을 제고하고자 하였다. 조사의 주요 내용은 농업정책 평가와 요구, 식품안전, 농촌 생활여건, 농업·농촌 가치 인식과 의식변화 등이었으며 과거 조사와의 비교분석을 위한 문항을 추가하여 이 자료가 농업인과 소비자의 의식 변화에 기초한 정책연구에 참고가 되도록 하였다.

○ The Korea Rural Economic Institute has conducted the annual national survey on Korean people’s awareness of rural industry and community, for two months from October 2009. This survey is carried out at the end of every year. For this year, they tried to understand more comprehensive and balanced public opinions regarding rural industry and community by adding expert groups for the first time to the existing survey targets including rural and urban residents. ○ In this survey, 2,470 people including 1,500 urban residents, 906 farmers and 64 experts participated, and these respondents consented on value and necessity for awareness of rural industry and community, however, they also expressed different policy directions and expectations according to their different interests for each group.

○ Positive indicators for people’s awareness on rural life and farmer’s view on their occupations are continuing to improve since 2002, however, visions of agricultural industry and rural life stay around 20%, which is 10-20%p lower than urban residents or experts’ hope indicator. This means that we need to develop a vision that can resolve uncertainty of farmers and that can make them to plan future. ○ Farmers and experts selected development in food industry like globalization of Korean food as the most achieved policy among agricultural policies that the Government focused in 2009, and the least achieved policy as the rural family business stabilization policy. Issue of reorganizing the Agricultural Cooperatives, which became a social issue, is analyzed differently, thus, we expect public opinions can be changed in accordance with future promotions and situations.

○ For agricultural policies that require more investments, agricultural people chose support in pension and expanding direct payment scheme, while experts preferred investments focused on essential and long-term countermeasures like agricultural product stability and development of succeeding workforces. Yet, both farmers and experts selected investment in the policy that sizes farms for full-time farmers should be reduced. ○ About six people out of ten urban residents (62.5%) trust safety of Korean agricultural products and their awareness that Korean agricultural products are safer than foreign products achieved 83.8%, which shows they support Korean products highly. Urban residents, who have intentions to go back to the soil was 53.5%, which is decreasing, and the most worrisome aspect when they return to farm was found out to be securing income sources. ○ About satisfaction in residential environment and quality of life, disparity between urban and rural residents still did not decrease and was found to be 19.4%p, 7.5%p, which shows similar gap compared to the last year. However, both group’s positive awareness is increasing every year. ○ Through this survey, we realized that people’s supports on agricultural industry and rural regions are still very high, but there is a clear distinct of awareness between rural people, urban residents and expert groups about specific agricultural policies, which means we need monitoring and policies that take these differences into account.