The government will pursue a supplementary measure under which owners of farmland they cannot farm themselves, whether because it was inherited or because of advanced age, can defer forced disposal procedures by entrusting it to the Farmland Bank for leasing.

Current law imposes a duty to dispose of farmland that is not owner-farmed and levies enforcement charges on those who fail to comply. The audit turned up large numbers of inherited plots and land held by elderly farmers, and resistance in the field grew.

The Farmland Bank is a leasing and sales intermediation scheme run by the Korea Rural Community Corporation. Its premise is that even where an owner does not farm, leasing through the bank to an actual cultivator preserves the land's agricultural purpose.

Between Speculation and Livelihood

The audit began from an intention to end the practice of treating farmland as a speculative asset, a direction farmers' organizations have broadly said they accept.

The difficulty is that cases unrelated to speculation are mixed among those caught. Someone who inherited fields from a parent but lives in a city, or who stopped farming with age but finds no market for the land, are the common examples.

Farmers' groups have framed their demand as support for ending speculation coupled with a call to address the freeze in transactions first, pointing out that disposal orders issued where there are no buyers simply accumulate penalties.

Deferral through the Farmland Bank is meant to bridge that gap. Whether leasing demand keeps pace as entrusted volume rises, and whether rent levels are adequate, will decide how the measure works in practice.