산림복합경영의 실태조사 및 성과분석

Abstract

목재생산 임업의 저수익성과 장기성을 보완하기 위해 주목받는 것이 산림복합경영(agroforestry)이다. 산림복합경영은 나무들 사이에 산나물 또는 산양삼 등 단기 임산물을 식재하거나 가축을 키우면서 목재생산 임업의 장기성을 보완하고자 하는 산림경영 형태이다. 이는 산림의 생태적 기능을 훼손하지 않으면서 산주들의 단기소득을 창출하여 산촌사회 활성화에 기여하는 방안이다. 이러한 형태의 산림이용은 열대지역 뿐만 아니라 유럽과 미국을 비롯한 선진국에서도 널리 적용되고 있다. 우리나라에도 산림복합경영의 전통이 있지만 식량증산 또는 목재생산을 우선하는 정책에서 소홀히 다루어져 점차 쇠퇴하게 되었다. 그러나 안전 먹거리와 삶의 질을 중요시하는 문화가 확산되면서 숲에서 생산하는 임산물에 대한 관심도 높아지고 있다. 정부에서도 농림업의 6차산업화를 추진하고 있기 때문에 산림을 복합적으로 이용하는 경영형태가 새로이 주목받고 있다.

이 연구는 그동안 추진되어온 산림복합경영의 실태를 파악하고 성과를 분석하면서 이에 근거하여 산림복합경영의 활성화 방안을 제시한 것이다. 산림복합경영을 영위하는 생산자와 임산물을 구매하는 소비자들의 의식을 분석하였고 국내외 사례들을 조사하였다.

The objectives of the study are to examine the current status and performance of the agroforesty system in Korea, making some policy suggestions to rehabilitate it. Agroforestry system includes both traditional and modern land-use systems where crops and/or animals are produced together with trees in wood production setting. Agroforestry system can enhance ecosystems as providing carbon storage, greater biodiversity and less erosion. The types of agroforestry system in temperate regions are forest farming, silvopasture, windbreaks, riparian forest buffer, alley cropping, and special application. The most common types of agroforestry in Korea are forest farming and silvopasture. Some farmers are cultivating shiitake mushroom, ginseng or wild vegetables (e.g. Ligularia fischeri (Ledeb.) Turcz., Allium microdictyon Prokh.) under the trees. The others are raising goats or cows in the forest, which can cause various environmental problem if not properly managed. Driving the private owners to have interests in forestry is crucial in sustainable forest management in Korea. Owing to the steep terrain and low forest infrastructure, the timber production in Korea is not profitable. Thus, private forest owners have more interests in cultivating non-timber forest products such as chestnut, or mushroom rather than producing timber or timber related to raise income. In that sense, the agroforestry, which is a land-use system to raise income from forests with promotion of ecological functions of forests, becomes relevant in Korea. In order to generate more income from the forest as well as to realize sustainable forest management, the Korea Forest Service have subsidized agroforestry system in many ways since 1999. However, the current condition of agroforesty in Korea is not bright, suffering from low profitability and various land and forest related regulations. When compared with the farming from open field, the agroforestry generally shows lower productivity per unit area as well. Nonetheless, we can expect to see alive agroforesty in the future if we can remove some obstacles. The 55% of the farmers who are engaged in agroforesty answered that their business are properly managed and the 74% of them have plan to expand the agroforestry farm size. The obstacles raised by them are 'to secure the operating cost', 'dubious administrative procedure', 'shortage of labor', 'to secure outlet' so on. It implies that we need to consider some policy remodeling with regard to subsidy, regulation, and procedures. According to the survey, consumers generally have high demand for the naturally grown forest products, as they believe the one from the forest has more nutritions and functioning compounds than the one cultivated in the field. Hence, they are willing to pay more for the one from the forest but only when the quality and genuinity can be guaranteed. To cope with the demand of consumers properly, it may be necessary to provide a certification system and or history tracking system for the forest grown products. In many countries, agroforesty sheds new lights as an alternative of single product farming. Most of the advanced countries including the US and EU have supported agroforesty, being recognized ecological and economical functionality of it. Based on the policy evaluation, survey, and country review, we propose some tasks to promote agroforestry in Korea. First, we need to upgrade the agroforestry to the level of 6th industry as combining production with tourism. To become higher value-added business, agroforestry should be expanded to processing, selling and experience. Second, as noted earlier, we need to have a certification system for the forestry products to differentiate market with others, which will makes the consumers to buy more and pay more. Third, it is necessary to have some policy consideration. We need to institutionalize agroforetry management, expand production foundation and infrastructure, have better access the forest, relieve regulations, and provide financial supports directly or indirectly. Fourth, in order to be able to suggest appropriate models of agroforesty in different regions, we need to expand the study and related budget for conducting researches to grow various forest products in various forest and human resource conditions.