South Korea forms public-private panel to address farming sector's CPTPP concerns

The South Korean government will form a public-private consultative body — bringing together farmers' organizations, government officials and experts — to assess the impact of large-scale free trade agreements, including the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), on the domestic agricultural sector. The move aims to gather the farming community's concerns over agricultural market liberalization and develop crop-by-crop response measures. The government drew a line, however, saying the panel's formation does not presuppose accession to the CPTPP or signal the start of any accession process.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs announced Thursday it would establish and begin operating a tentatively named "public-private consultative body on trade issues in the agricultural sector" to collect the farming community's views on major trade matters, including the CPTPP.

The ministry has held meetings with farmers' organizations and gathered field-level opinions since public deliberations on the CPTPP began Aug. 27. The new consultative body is designed to formalize those ongoing exchanges into a regular discussion framework, sustaining communication between the agricultural sector and the government.

The body will include representatives from farmers' organizations, government agencies and academic experts, and will operate through a plenary session as well as a leadership council, a working-level council and commodity-specific subcommittees.

The leadership and working-level councils will address key concerns from the farming community and discuss trade-related issues. The commodity-specific subcommittees will examine in detail how mega-FTAs such as the CPTPP would affect individual agricultural sectors, review field-level concerns and explore response measures.

The plenary session will share the outcomes of each council's discussions and handle common issues facing the agricultural sector as a whole. The ministry plans to incorporate opinions raised through the body into consultations with related ministries and the review of relevant policies.

An online feedback channel will also be set up for farmers who find it difficult to participate directly in the consultative body. Submissions from farmers and others will be reviewed by the relevant department and fed into the body's discussions. Details on how to use the channel will be announced separately on the ministry's website.

The government maintains that forming the consultative body does not constitute a decision to join the CPTPP or mark the beginning of an accession process. Officials described it as a preliminary discussion aimed at examining the potential impact on the agricultural sector and key issues — and at fully hearing the farming community's views — in preparation for any future possibility of pursuing membership.

"The CPTPP is a matter that requires a thorough look at its impact on agriculture and the concerns from the field," Park Sang-ho, the ministry's director general for international agricultural cooperation, said. "We will focus on continuously listening to the voices of the farming community, discussing key issues together and building trust."