Agriculture in Korea is under increasing pressure to meet changing domestic demand, improve its productivity to keep up with the country's competitive manufacturing sector, and become more competitive at the international level. To date, the government has offered extensive support to farm ...

Agriculture in Korea is under increasing pressure to meet changing domestic demand, improve its productivity to keep up with the country's competitive manufacturing sector, and become more competitive at the international level. To date, the government has offered extensive support to farm income via price support, direct payments, preferential tax treatment, and reduced input prices. However, a more comprehensive policy approach is required to address the low-income problem in agriculture, and a more comprehensive rural development policy is also required to create employment opportunities for the younger generation. Korea should explore its potential to export niche agricultural products and processed food that reflect its rich and unique food culture. To unleash the sector’s potential, agricultural policy should focus on improving the productivity and sustainability of commercial enterprises and develop the food processing sector. The country's agricultural innovation system should become more integrated and collaborative, benefiting from its strong competitive advantage in Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

Markets that function well within a stable regulatory and policy environment are key to improving the productivity and sustainability of the food and agriculture sector. This report contains the main findings and policy lessons gained from a series of wide-ranging country reviews on how government policies can improve sectoral productivity and sustainability through their impact on innovation, structural change, natural resource use, and climate change. Improving the policy environment would require rolling back those policies that distort markets the most and retain farmers in uncompetitive and low-income activities, harm the environment, stifle innovation, slow structural and generational change, and weaken resilience.

In Japan, agriculture has been treated differently from other parts of the national economy.

Productivity growth in the Turkish agricultural sector is supported today by better technologies, crop varieties and animal breeds. Yet improvements have slowed since the late 2000s, and the productivity gap between agriculture and the rest of the economy remains large.

The expansion of agricultural production in China has been remarkable, but at the expense of the sustainable use of its natural resources. To counter this, as well as to face problems due to rising labour costs and a rapidly ageing rural population, agricultural production must concentrate on a ...