Historical Background & SOCIO-ECONOMIC PROFILE

-1989 – FARMING AS A RISKY ACTIVITY (PG. 44)

-Agriculture

- deforestation and chemical poisoning

fertilizer pollution (pg. 54)

- greenhouse effect and air pollution
“In some areas, farmers have reported that their crops were damaged by neighboring industrial
facilities, and the yield from rice and barley crops substantially reduced. Recently, several
industries in the Yeocheon Industrial Complex were ordered to compensated nearby farming
households… for crop damage that had been inflicted over the years”
FOR SULFUR DIOXIDE EMISSIONS:
8% - cars
87% - industrial and commercial sectors

DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY/models

-HIGH SPEED INDUSTRIALIZATION

LATE 1940S – RHEE SYNG-MAN REGIME

-Land reform

Limitation of farm ownership to no more than 3 hectares

Banning of tenant farming
The number of tenant-farmer households dropped from 86.2% in 1945 to 26.4% in 1960
Over 40% of the land scheduled for redistribution was actually not transferred because owners
were able to disguise themselves as tillers or registered land titles to their sons or other
relatives.
Was only seen as a political-management program, not as a central element in an integrated
policy of economic development

-some of its policies had the effect of favoring urban industrialization over agriculture
Example: keeping grain prices low in order to blunt economic and political discontent in the cities. This
was achieved partly through the indiscriminate importation of U.S. surpluses under public law 480,
which depressed grain prices below the cost of production. (46)

-resulted in a significant degradation of rural living standards and increase rural emigration’]

The country subsidized the first phase of south Korea industrialization in the postwar period. It also
subsidized the second, export oriented phase.

PARK CHUNGHEE (46)

First decree: dissolution of unions (20)

1. Labor Union Law – bawal bumuo ng union
2. The Labor Disputes Adjustments Law – bawal magstrike
Agricultural credit cooperatives merged with the Agricultural Bank > enlarged flow of credit to
the rural areas and contributing to the rise in the agricultural growth rate from 1.6% per year in
1957-60 to 8.8% in 1962-65.
It seemed that agriculture would be the designated locomotive for growth
Adopted a full-scale program of export-oriented industrialization that reversed the countryside’s
gains earlier in the decade – same mechanism of real resource transfer and urban pacification
that had operated under the Rhee government: low prices for rice and other grains
Low grain price policies were adopted as a means of surplus extraction… the state was in effect,
engaged in forming an export-oriented entrepreneurial class. Keeping wage costs low facilitated
this economic development strategy.

The Great Cooptation of 1970s

Response to the another rural crisis – FOUR PRONGED RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

– revitalization of the rural credit system

-a grain policy of buying dear and selling cheap

- campaign to plant the so-called miracle rice instead of traditional rice

- Saemaul Undong – New Community Movement

Park’s Rural Development Strategy

- Second component: New double pricing policy

 The government bought grain from the farmers at artificially
high prices at harvest time, then sold it in a subsidized basis to
urban consumers in the off-season.
o Rice became Korea’s most protected commodity selling at twice the world market price
- Third prong: plant miracle rice
 More than 70% of the paddy land were planted with Tongil Rice
 Incentives are mixed with sanctions
 Resulted in higher yields
  Incurred higher costs than Ilban in the form of greater applications of fertilizers
and pesticides, the prices of which were controlled by the government
 Began the process of burying the Korean farmer in debt
 Negative impact on the environment and farmer’s health
 Costly dead end as well
 Strain’s susceptibility to disease and by continued consumer loyalty to the
traditional varieties.
- Fourth prong: Saemaul Undong

Programs and policies of GOVERNMENT

PROBLEMS/CHALLENGES ENCOUNTERED IN THE PROCESS

CURRENT ISSUES/PROBLEMS & SOLUTIONS

1. Japan-South Korea Trade War

2.