The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs must decide and disclose the "food self-sufficiency rate target" by the end of the year. The self-sufficiency rate is the share of food produced domestically out of total food consumption. An official at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said, "We have to set targets in five-year units, and each time there is a lot to ponder."
There are several reasons the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs is grappling with the food self-sufficiency rate. First, there is the problem that it has fallen far short of the target over the years. The target self-sufficiency rate for 2022 was 55.4%, but it ended up at 49.4%. Earlier, in 2017, the target was 57%, but the result was 48.7%. The gaps were 6 percentage points and 8.3 percentage points, respectively. From the public's perspective, there may be questions about whether the policy target setting itself is flawed.
There are other circumstances. There are quite a few crops for which it is hard to raise the self-sufficiency rate. Wheat and corn, key items in the food self-sufficiency rate, are said to be inevitably heavily reliant on imports. Domestic wheat, due to varietal characteristics, is not suitable as a raw material for processed noodles with strong demand, such as ramen. For feed corn as well, domestic products lack price competitiveness, limiting the ability to increase production. As a result, the self-sufficiency rates for wheat and corn showed almost no change between 2014 (1.1%·4.5%) and 2024 (1.5%·4.3%).
Other problems may also arise in the process of raising the self-sufficiency rate. To raise it, domestically produced goods must increase and imports must be reduced. But restricting imports can trigger trade issues.
Some also point out that as farmland area continues to shrink, there is an inevitable limit to increasing domestic production. Farmland area was 1,556,716 hectares (ha) in 2021 and then declined each year to 2022 (1,528,237 ha), 2023 (1,512,145 ha), 2024 (1,504,615 ha), and 2025 (1,499,911 ha). The National Assembly Research Service noted, "The most important variable for a feasible food self-sufficiency target will likely be farmland area."
Even if domestic production increases, problems remain. Oversupply of agricultural products can trigger price collapses, or agricultural products may be distributed at prices far higher than international prices, adding pressure to inflation.
Meanwhile, the food self-sufficiency rate is measured by estimating item-specific self-sufficiency rates across seven categories: rice, barley rice, wheat, corn, soybeans, tubers, and others. The law stipulates that the Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs must set the self-sufficiency rate every five years.
Korea's food self-sufficiency rate hit a low of 44% in 2021 and has since remained below 50% at 49.4% in 2022, 49.3% in 2023, and 48% in 2024. A person in the agricultural sector said, "From the perspective of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, it wants to raise the self-sufficiency target, but reality does not follow, creating a 'dilemma.'"