| dc.description.abstract | Research Background
The efforts for preserving prime farmland have been made by enforcing many policy programs to use good land for agriculture in both Japan in an environment similar to Korea and the US with wide land areas. Korea categorizes the standard of specifying agricultural development regions which are prime farmland on the basis of collective farmland and land productivity, and the regions are designated through new designation, incorporation and areas requested by farmers. However, farmers do not want their farmland to be designated as an agricultural development region because price of the farmland is evaluated low due to limitation of activities if their farmland is specified as an agricultural development region. That is, a weakness of the current Farmland Promotion Program is that farmland owners of agricultural development regions are not fully supported with complementary programs for their farmland. Various types of compensation support programs are required, rather than just monetary compensation, in order to expand the agricultural promotion area through preserved farmland.
It is necessary to establish more programs for prime farmland preservation supporting farmers although they are not for reorganization of current agricultural promotion areas, program-related regulations or program restructuring in order to minimize blind spots of established programs (vitalize upland farming, ensure stabilized use of farmland).
Method of Research
The result of this study was obtained efficiently through literature review, a questionnaire survey, statistics data analysis and quantitative analysis. Literature review is based on published statistics data related to farmland preservation, Korean and overseas prior study data. In this process of review, policy programs of other countries were also reviewed. The questionnaire survey was carried out with 1,566 farmers (local correspondents of KREI) through e-mails, and 412 farmers replied. Statistics data from the original data of the Agricultural Management DB were used to examine use of good land and fallow. The officially assessed reference land prices covering the area of 500,000 lots (pilji) of standard land across Korea by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport were used to analyze the effect of farmland preservation policies (designating agricultural promotion areas, maintaining production infrastructure) on farmland assets by using the Hedonic model.
Conclusion and Implication of Research
The direction of improving programs identified on the basis of the aforementioned farmland preservation programs and current data is described below.
First, seek sustainable and stable use of farmland. Second, build a cooperative governance system of bodies for farmland preservation. Third, ensure farmland preservation based on eco-friendliness. Fourth, establish farmland protection policies by policies through encouragement rather than regulation.
Specific tasks of institutional improvement based on the aforementioned institutional improvement suggestions are described below.
First, expand application of tax exemption in the Restriction of Special Taxation Act in the agricultural promotion areas. The regulation can be improved by discarding the exemption program for transfer tax of farmland cultivated by land owners for more than 8 years which encourages absentee land owners to take advantage of the Act by illegal farmland rent to be exempted from the transfer income tax to deter efficient use of farmland in many cases. Another suggestion is to give the benefit of Special Deduction for Long-term Holding (see Article 95 of the Income Tax Act) to farmland owners in the agricultural promotion areas. That is, it is possible to consider applying the concept of special deduction for long-term holding described in Article 95 of the current Income Tax Act to apply a higher special deduction rate for long-term holding than general deduction or one house per one household to compensate for restriction of use.
Second, impose different property taxes on owner-farmers and owners (no farming). For the present differential property taxation (draft) categorized as farmers (owner-farmers, including farmers who rent farmland for farming) and owners (no farming), introduce the property taxation by multiple tax rates for farming (by owner-farmers, farmland rent through the Farmland Bank), person-to-person rent, and fallow to encourage farming by owner-farmers and implement efficient use of farmland.
Third, impose different levies for farmland preservation in and out of the agricultural promotion areas. One solution suggested is to settle the side effect of wanting farmland conversion relatively more in the agricultural promotion area than out of the area by raising the rate in the agricultural promotion area from current 30% to at least 50%. This solution aims to achieve the purpose of the Farmland Preservation Levy Program to deter farmland conversion of good farmland, and keep continuous stability of the Farmland Preservation Levy Program.
Fourth, enforce the Farmland Preservation Direct-Payment Program. Enhance multifunctionality of agriculture and integrate the fixed direct payment program for rice and the direct payment program for upland farming into farmland direct-payment on a mid- and long-term basis. To this end, supply direct payment only to farmers who enter an agreement with the government or local government not to use the farmland in/out of the agricultural promotion areas for non-agricultural purpose for at least 10 years.
Fifth, enforce the Transferable Development Rights (TDR) on a long-term basis. It is necessary to select just areas around large cities rather than the capital region where development profits are greater than the loss compensation or taxation benefit to enforce and review the TDR.
Researchers: Chae Gwangseok, Kim Hongsang
Research period: 2015. 1. ~ 2015. 10.
E-mail address: gschae@krei.re.kr | - |
