Prospect of Korean Agricultural Policy

The purposes of this paper are to review the agricultural policy reform in the 1990s, to examine the changes of agricultural situations and the future prospect, and further to suggest policy directions toward the 21st century for the Korean agriculture. In Korea, agriculture is required to become a key industry creating added values and jobs, to preserve nation's land environment as an environment-sensitive industry, and to produce food needed by the people as a food industry. Korean agriculture will be able to contribute to enabling Korea to become an advanced country in the 21st century by fulfilling these roles faithfully. One of the important changes in the 21st century is the spread of an awareness that agriculture has multiple functions. Korea has advocated multi-functionality of agriculture in the WTO negotiations, and some policies are newly being attempted as part of the policies for sustainable agriculture.