President Lee calls agriculture a 'security industry,' urges expansion of farm subsidies

President Lee Jae-myung called for an expansion of agricultural subsidies Wednesday, saying Korea provides far less farm support than other advanced nations. Lee made the remarks in a direct reply on X, formerly Twitter, to a post by Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Minister Song Mi-ryung explaining the scale of Korea's farm subsidies.

"Agriculture is a critically important security industry," Lee wrote Wednesday. He said the country must maintain a minimum level of food production capacity for national survival, even when it is not economically efficient, to prepare for any emergency.

"That is why countries around the world pay agricultural subsidies — yet Korea's subsidies are far smaller than those of other advanced nations," Lee said. "To protect food security and revitalize rural communities, farming and farmers, we must increase agricultural subsidies now."

Lee said a basic rural income program is already producing some of the effects of increased farm support, and that a significant rise in the rural special tax — driven by a more active stock market — is helping secure sufficient funding.

He added that while market opening is inevitable for Korea as a trade-oriented nation, it is equally important to channel a portion of the gains from that opening into sectors that suffer losses, so those sectors face no real net damage.

Earlier, Song had posted on her own X account explaining the scale of agricultural support, saying there may have been room for misunderstanding when she presented the figures during a second-half work-plan briefing to the president.

Song said the 20 million won ($134,000) in transfer income reported per farm household includes not only public subsidies from the government but also private transfers such as allowances from children. Of that total, she said public agricultural subsidies — a subset of public transfers that include direct payments for public services, the national pension, the basic pension and child allowances — stood at 5.19 million won per household as of 2025.

Song also noted that while Korea's per-household agricultural subsidy stands at 5.19 million won, the figure is 25.8 million won in the EU and 9.67 million won in Japan. The share of agricultural subsidies relative to farm income is also lower in Korea, at 30.7 percent, compared with 49.4 percent in the EU and 62.7 percent in Japan, she said.

"I am sorry for not explaining the difficulties facing our farmers more carefully," Song said. She added that she would do her utmost to pay closer attention to the president's interest in agriculture and rural communities and to ease the hardships of Korean farmers.

In response, Lee thanked Song and officials at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs for their hard work and said they were delivering significant results.