Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs selects regulatory rationalization task... Promotion of special law following farmland survey

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Han Joo-hong = The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs held the 4th Agricultural and Food Regulatory Rationalization Strategy Meeting chaired by Minister Song Mi-ryeong on the 6th and announced that 50 regulatory rationalization tasks in 5 fields were selected through discussions with about 20 people, including agricultural and food industry and private experts.

First, we will pursue the enactment of a special measure law to eliminate violations of the Farmland Act, such as customary leases and previously installed agricultural facilities.

The plan is to postpone disposition of illegal matters that occurred until October 31 of this year for 3 years and convert them to a legal state through expansion of the scope of permitted lease and post-exclusive permission.

In order to revitalize the agricultural solar power generation business, we will include agricultural solar power in the business scope of agricultural corporations, and in consultation with the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment, we will also pursue a plan to exempt small-scale agricultural solar power projects with a power generation area of ​​less than 20,000 m2 from small-scale environmental impact assessment.

To foster new agricultural industries, new safety standards for autonomous agricultural machinery will be established, and vertical farms will be added to the seed industry registration facility standards.

Related systems will also be established to ensure the recycling of by-products generated during the production and distribution of agricultural and livestock products and food manufacturing processes.

In the livestock sector, we are reviewing measures to allow expansion and remodeling of livestock farms without increasing the size of livestock, and rationalization of standards for limiting livestock breeding distances.

A standard heat treatment process for pig blood-derived plasma protein feed required to inactivate the African Swine Fever (ASF) virus will also be established.

In order to stabilize farm management, we are promoting the introduction of optional semi-insurance for farms growing items without crop disaster insurance, and increasing the minimum payment rate of livestock disposal compensation from 20% to 30% of the livestock valuation.

We also plan to improve the farming settlement support program for young farmers so that young farmers and married couples who farm independently can receive support.

Measures to allow viewing and issuance of companion animal medical records and to support the upgrading of existing private animal shelters were also included in the task.

In the field of public livelihood regulation, 450 types of submission documents for 79 services required for policy support and license applications will be organized. This is a method of abolishing and consolidating unnecessary documents and exempting documents issued by administrative agencies from submission through joint use of administrative information.

We plan to improve the process that previously required processing farmland ledgers, agricultural business registration, and direct payment applications separately, and establish a one-stop service that links agricultural business registration and direct payment information with a single application when changing farmland lease.

Minister Song said, “We will push ahead with the revision of laws and system maintenance without a hitch so that farmers and citizens can quickly experience changes in the field.”