The government will announce concrete follow-up and remedial measures before the Chuseok holiday to calm anxiety in rural communities over a nationwide farmland survey. The revisions are expected to keep the original goal of stamping out farmland speculation while reducing side effects that have hurt law-abiding farmers and tenant farmers.
The Presidential Office said in a notice to the media on the 17th that "the ruling party and the government will consult to prepare a concrete direction and plan for the survey and announce it before Chuseok, in order to ease anxiety and clear up misunderstandings in the field." It added that "the farmland survey was carried out to identify speculative farmland and return it to farmers, and to grasp the actual state of farmland nationwide so that rules and policies can be improved to fit rural realities."
The announcement comes as discontent over the survey spreads among rural voters. The government began the survey this year with the stated aim of identifying speculative ownership, returning farmland to farmers, and assessing ownership and use patterns nationwide to improve rules and policies in line with rural conditions. A preliminary survey classified 2.84 million parcels, or 27% of those examined, as suspected violations of the Farmland Act.
Concerns have spread in the field that the findings could lead to forced disposal of farmland. Anxiety has grown in particular that tenant farmers who actually till land classified as illegally leased could lose their plots. The government has previously run a special compliance period encouraging written lease contracts and entrustment to the Farmland Bank to protect tenant farmers.
Members of the Democratic Party of Korea on the National Assembly's Agriculture, Food, Rural Affairs, Oceans and Fisheries Committee and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs held a closed-door meeting on the 16th and will hold a party-government consultation on the 21st to flesh out the measures. With the Presidential Office signaling an announcement before Chuseok, the package is expected to include criteria for action by category of case, protections for tenant farmers, and principles for issuing guidance rather than penalties for minor violations.
Kwon Chil-seung, chair of the Democratic Party's policy committee, said at a policy coordination meeting on the 17th: "It is true that some farmers are inconvenienced by the farmland survey. I ask the government to make every effort to ensure that law-abiding farmers and members of the public suffer no unnecessary harm in carrying out the farmland survey."
The opposition has sharpened its attacks on the government over the survey. The People Power Party has repeatedly called for a halt, saying the survey, pursued at President Lee Jae-myung's instruction, treats farmers as potential speculators.
Jang Dong-hyuk, leader of the People Power Party, said at a supreme council meeting on the 17th: "How futile and absurd is a survey that began with a pledge to catch people who treat farmland as an object of speculation? It is fortunate that it is being fixed even now, but they should apologize to farmers first." Floor leader Chung Jom-sig added that "the root cause of this situation is the president's extreme view, which knows nothing of rural realities and sees every real estate issue through the frame of speculators."
