President Lee Jae-myung said at a recent Cabinet meeting, "If someone buys land saying they will farm but then leaves it idle, consider measures to order a sale," and added, "If necessary, we should mobilize a large workforce to conduct a full survey."
The government investigates "farmland not used for farming" every year. But due to limits on manpower and budgets, it uses a method of sampling 15% of all farmland each year. Among those surveyed, the area where owners were found not to cultivate directly without justifiable reason or to have illegally leased the land accounts for about 0.2% of the total.
◇ Lee: "Rice paddies and fields are so expensive that returning to farming is hard"… real estate price stabilization extends to farmland
President Lee Jae-myung's remarks on "farmland not used for farming" came in the context of the need to stabilize real estate prices. His remarks at the Cabinet meeting on the 24th were that "the fundamental problem with housing prices is concentration in the Seoul metropolitan area, and even if people try to return to rural areas, they say it is hard to settle because rice paddies and fields are expensive."
Under the current Farmland Act, in principle, to buy farmland one must receive a farmland acquisition qualification certificate and use the acquired farmland directly for farm management. If someone buys farmland but does not actually cultivate it, or reports weekend/experience farming but in effect builds a vacation home or resort facility, the local government head issues a notice imposing a duty to dispose of the land. If it is not disposed of within one year, a disposal order is then issued. If it is still not disposed of within six months thereafter, a noncompliance penalty equal to 25% of the officially assessed land price is imposed annually.
The government examines the situation every year. It samples about 15% of all cultivated land (1.5 million ha). The survey focuses on places suspected of being "farmland not used for farming." According to the most recent 2023 survey, the area notified of the duty to dispose of farmland was 576 ha, just 0.24% of the 230,000 ha of those surveyed.
◇ "If investigated strictly, detections could increase… a full survey would cost 10 times more expense"
The share found to be "farmland not used for farming" and thus subject to the duty to dispose of the land was ▲2019: 0.48% ▲2020: 0.45% ▲2021: 0.89% ▲2022: 0.47% ▲2023: 0.24%—all under 1% over the past five years. By this metric alone, speculative farmland is a very small share.
However, some farmland experts say, "It is worth noting that in 2021, when the so-called 'LH incident' occurred, the share subject to the duty to dispose of land nearly doubled from usual." The LH incident was a case in which employees of the Korea Land & Housing Corporation (LH) fraudulently acquired farmland and engaged in large-scale real estate speculation, which was uncovered. If a full survey is conducted using strict methods, we cannot rule out the possibility that detections of "farmland not used for farming" will increase.
There is also criticism that even when the government detects "farmland not used for farming," the measures to restore it to farmland used for farming are not being carried out properly. The share of cases where, after receiving a disposal order, owners do not sell the land and instead are levied noncompliance penalties is 22%–36% each year. Roughly one-third are holding on as "farmland not used for farming" even if they have to pay money. President Lee Jae-myung also said, "If someone buys land saying they will farm but does not farm, we should issue a disposal order or impose noncompliance penalties, but I hear such cases are also rare."
Meanwhile, the government plans to survey 180,000 ha of cultivated land this year to identify "farmland not used for farming." During the period when crops can be identified (June–December), township and town farmland managers and temporarily hired assistants will take part in the survey. A budget of 8.7 billion won has been allocated for this.
A government official said, "As President Lee pointed out, to conduct a full survey we would need more than 10 times the budget and manpower," adding, "We will begin a full survey when we are ready."