Key Summary
- South Korea’s prime minister said the rural basic income budget should rise from 300 billion won this year to at least 1.1 trillion won next year, with further increases possible.
- She said the government has set next year’s agriculture budget at 22.2 trillion won, up more than 10% from this year and described it as a record high.
- She also said the government is preparing a retirement pension plan for farmers.
- Her remarks were delivered at the 31st Farmers’ Day ceremony in Seoul.
Main Story
South Korea’s prime minister used a Farmers’ Day ceremony in Seoul to call for a significant expansion of support for rural communities and the agricultural sector.
Speaking at an event hosted by the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation in central Seoul, she said the budget for a rural basic income program should rise sharply from this year’s 300 billion won to more than 1.1 trillion won next year. She added that there were also calls for even larger funding.
She said farmers are facing tougher conditions because fertilizer prices have risen, agricultural input costs have become unstable, and weather changes are making farming more difficult. She thanked farmers for sustaining the country’s food supply and food security.
The prime minister said the government had already allocated 22.2 trillion won for agriculture next year, more than 10% above this year’s budget and the largest on record. She said building a safe environment in which farmers can work with confidence is a priority for protecting agricultural security.
She also said the government needs to introduce a system to stabilize farm product prices and improve disaster recovery payments. In addition, she said preparations are under way for a retirement pension program for farmers.
Beyond those measures, she said the government will support innovation in agriculture as a strategic industry. She pointed to new investment in physical AI, including AI-powered farm machinery and agricultural robots, and said exports of K-food should continue to grow as a future engine of expansion.
At the start of her remarks, she also referred to shaking hands with award recipients at the ceremony and said it felt like touching a mother’s hand.
Background
The supplied text provided limited background beyond the fact that the remarks were made during the 31st Farmers’ Day ceremony at the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation in Seoul.
Items Requiring Further Verification
- The article attributes all policy intentions and budget figures to the prime minister’s speech; independent confirmation from government budget documents would be needed.
- The statement that the agriculture budget for next year is the largest ever is presented in the speech and should be checked against official budget records.
- References to plans for a farm product price stabilization system, disaster recovery payment changes, and a farmer retirement pension are described as pending preparations, not finalized policies.
- The remark comparing the handshake to “touching a mother’s hand” is a personal comment quoted in the article and may not be objectively verifiable beyond the event context.