President-elect Lee Should Take Note of Netherlands' Agricultural Reform

In the conference held yesterday with delegates from agricultural and fisheries organizations, President-elect Lee Myung-bak revealed the idea of industrializing the "from farm to table" process by fostering the agricultural industry -- currently in the primary sector of industry -- into a manufacturing & distribution industry -- in the secondary sector of industry.

President-elect Lee also mentioned that by drastically reforming the distribution structure and enabling farmers to directly sell their products to consumers in cities, effort will be allotted for improving the profitability of farming households.

A change of the administration is accompanied by agriculture-specific measures. However, as the measures are focused on appeasing farmers, they usually end in failure: The large money supplies are not executed in a way that actually improves competitiveness of the farming industry and as a result, complaints are made by farmers. What President-elect Lee said is hopeful as it can be understood as the determination to search for a fundamental way to reform the agricultural sector, unlike policies in the past where money was simply poured in.

Reform of the distribution structure, which has been an issue for years, should be realized as well.

In particular, it is important to closely examine the case of Netherlands -- a country of agricultural power -- and its implications for the new agricultural policy revealed by President-elect Lee. Despite its small land area which is approximately the size of Korea's Gyeongsang province, Netherlands is renowned for its farming competitiveness as it has the highest farmland productivity per ㏊ and the world's second largest agricultural trade surplus.