National audit opens with clash over farmland survey

The National Assembly's Agriculture, Food, Rural Affairs, Oceans and Fisheries Committee opened its national audit Wednesday in immediate conflict, with the ruling and opposition parties clashing over a government-led comprehensive farmland survey. The People Power Party accused the survey of threatening to drive farmers off their land, while the Democratic Party of Korea defended it as a measure to protect farmers and ensure farmland is used for agriculture.

At the audit of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs held at the National Assembly on Wednesday, People Power Party lawmakers displayed placards on their laptops reading "Drive out the farmers — and then what, solar panels?" Democratic Party lawmakers responded by calling for the placards to be removed, saying they distorted the intent of the farmland survey.

Yoon Jun-byeong, a Democratic Party lawmaker who leads his party's side on the committee, said the comprehensive farmland survey was designed "to create a basic framework for protecting farmers and ensuring farmland is used for agricultural purposes," and called it "a mistaken assessment" to say the survey would drive farmers out.

Yoon also addressed agri-solar farming — the practice of generating solar power on farmland — calling it "one of the basic means of pursuing income growth for farmers using their land." He said the opposition's placards risked creating public misunderstanding about the government's farmland survey, and asked PPP lawmakers to remove them before proceeding with the audit.

Democratic Party lawmaker Lim Mi-ae added that installing solar panels on farmland "came up repeatedly during the review of the agri-solar farming bill as a way of preserving farmland," saying the goal was not solar power itself but finding ways to keep farmland functioning as farmland.

She said that if problems had arisen in translating the legislation into policy on the ground, "the right approach is to question the agriculture minister during the national audit," and that "it is not right to negate the process by which the agriculture committee reviewed and passed the bill."

The People Power Party, for its part, pressed its case that the farmland survey was out of touch with rural realities.

PPP lawmaker Kang Seung-gyu said the survey "has drawn the anger of farmers across the country," arguing it stemmed from President Lee Jae Myung's perception — "disconnected from rural reality" — that he would catch farmland speculators and that land was too expensive to serve its original purpose.

Kang also called for Cheong Wa Dae officials to be summoned as witnesses for the audit. He claimed the Democratic Party had blocked his request to call "officials who gave the president false reports on farmland and plunged rural communities across the country into hardship."

Kim Seon-gyo, a PPP lawmaker who leads his party's side on the committee, said the placards were "not intended to obstruct the national audit," and pointed to what he described as a contradiction: the government was conducting the farmland survey to push farmers to farm their land directly, while the president had repeatedly raised the use of solar panels on farmland at Cabinet meetings.

When Kim asked Agriculture Minister Song Mi-ryeong whether the preliminary phase of the farmland survey had been completed, Song said it had. Kim then called on the ministry to submit monthly data on farmland bank lease applications, approvals and rejections, as well as the succession rate for existing tenant farmers on newly entrusted farmland.

Concerns about drone security during the farmland survey were also raised.

PPP lawmaker Kim Yong-tae said that according to data he received from the Korea Rural Community Corporation, most of the drones used in the survey were Chinese-made and the software was confirmed to be of Russian origin. He called on the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs to submit documents related to whether a security review had been conducted, who conducted it and when, and communications between the ministry and the corporation regarding drone footage and video processing systems.

Kim said the ministry, as the agency overseeing the farmland survey, "has not provided even basic materials related to security," and urged it to submit the relevant documents by the end of the day.