The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs will sharply execute livelihood budgets starting on New Year's Day to support food for vulnerable groups and protect farms hit by disasters. The scale is more than double last year.
The ministry said on the 2nd it will swiftly execute a total of 60.7 billion won for four livelihood programs to protect vulnerable groups and respond to disasters. That is more than double the 30 billion won executed on New Year's Day last year.
The programs to be executed this time are: ▲ "1,000-won breakfast" for industrial complex workers (1.4 billion won) ▲ agri-food vouchers (2.1 billion won) ▲ disaster countermeasure funds (12.8 billion won) ▲ crop disaster insurance (44.4 billion won). The ministry plans to inject budgets from New Year's Day to boost tangible recovery effects for people's livelihoods on the ground.
The "1,000-won breakfast" program for industrial complex workers is a pilot project introduced for the first time this year. It is a policy to provide breakfast using domestic rice to industrial complex workers with low access to food, and it will support about 900,000 meals at a total of 34 industrial complexes this year. The target industrial complexes were selected in Nov. and operations will begin immediately in Jan.
The agri-food voucher program will also be greatly expanded. This year's budget is 74 billion won, about double last year's 38.1 billion won. The beneficiaries will be expanded from households on basic livelihood benefits that include pregnant women, infants, and children to include youth (age 34 and under), bringing the total to about 160,000 households. The support period has also been extended from 10 months to 12 months. Vouchers can be used immediately from Jan. 2 at about 60,000 stores nationwide.
The ministry will expedite execution of disaster countermeasure funds and crop disaster insurance to respond to weather anomalies. It will also additionally execute in Jan. the remaining 12.8 billion won in disaster relief funds currently being paid after recognizing rice kernel smut caused by last year's abnormal high temperatures as an agricultural disaster for the first time. Crop disaster insurance will likewise begin accepting applications from Jan. this year to bring forward farmers' enrollment.
Kim Jeong-ju, Director General for Policy Planning at the ministry, said, "We significantly increased execution from New Year's Day to strengthen the role of fiscal policy as a priming pump for restoring the livelihood economy," adding, "We will check execution conditions from time to time so that the budget effects can be felt on the ground."