Strategies and Directions for Developing Sustainable Agriculture in Korea

지속가능한 농업발전을 위한 전략과 추진과제

The objective of this paper is to formulate strategies and action programs for developing sustainable agriculture in Korea. There is increasing evidence that agriculture has been preoccupied with increasing productivity much to the detriment of environmental degradation. The issue of increasing agricultural productivity so as not to undermine the environment is a difficult task. In reality, there are many definitions of sustainable agriculture and sustainable agricultural development. In this paper, sustainable agriculture is defined by its ability to ensure future supplies of agricultural products at acceptable economic and environmental costs to the society. Sustainable agriculture development refers to the optimal level of interaction among the three dimensions - the environmental, the economic and the social - through dynamic and adaptive processes of trade-off. In order to formulate the strategies for developing sustainable agriculture, three stage approaches such as strategic analysis, strategic choice, and strategic implementation are employed. The basic framework for strategies of sustainable agriculture development consists of five steps such as vision, targets, principles, action plan and policy instruments. The major action plans for activating formulated strategies are suggested as integrating agricultural and environmental policy measures, establishing the system of optimal agri-environmental resources management practices, establishing safe and high quality product system and its effective marketing system, increasing the R&D investment for developing sustainable agro-technology, developing indicators for measuring sustainable agricultural development, and taking a share in related roles for all parties including farmers, consumers, policy makers, researchers and NGOs.