The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said on the 26th it has finalized goat meat as this year's item eligible for compensation direct payments under the free trade agreement (FTA). The FTA direct payment is a subsidy that compensates up to 95% of the price drop for items whose prices fell due to a sharp increase in imports after an FTA took effect.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said that to determine the items eligible for FTA direct payments, it analyzed whether 105 items were affected by FTAs through the FTA Implementation Support Center at the Korea Rural Economic Institute (KREI). Finally, after deliberation and resolution by the Committee to Support Farmers, etc., in Accordance with the Implementation of the Free Trade Agreement, which includes experts such as producer groups, goat meat was selected as a supported item.
Those eligible for FTA direct payments are farmers, etc., who produced goat meat before Dec. 12, 2014, the effective date of the Korea-Australia FTA. The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs plans to finalize the list of recipients and the per-unit payment rate in October and pay the direct payments to farmers, etc., by December.