To keep up with growing demand for clean forestry products the Forest Service of Korea has been supporting to make large scale farms for producing forest products since 2008. Being provided the 60% of the budget by central and local government, farmer can do land arrangement or build necessary facilities such as sprinkler, well, greenhouse, fence and so on. The farms located in flat land as well as forest can grow various forest products including mushroom, wild greens, medicinal plants, ginseng, trees such as jujube and even scenic tree species.
Starting 11 farms in 2008, there are 99 farms nationwide in mountain areas. Among them the majority of products are wild greens(32 farms), wild ginseng(18 farms), and mushroom(20). In terms of the location, there are 29 greenhouse or growing facility, 57 forest, and 13 flat land. Typically farms in flat land are more integrated than farms in forest in terms of land arrangement and cultivation.
The purpose of the study is to review the program based on field study and make policy suggestion. Based on the financial as well as sustainability analysis to cover current and future, we can conclude that the program shows 36% success ratio such that 23 farms among 64 farms are success. In terms of species, mushroom and bracken, a type of wild greens, show better business result than others.
Though the key factors for achieving success of forest products farm business are varied on products and farm types, there are some conditions that can be generally applied to all types of farms. Farmer's willingness is vital and farms should be expert in cultivated products. Farmers having earlier experience in cultivating the product show more tendency of success than farmers don't. Operating cost for farm should be planned carefully with business plan covering the period until full-scale harvest. Most of forest products and especially ginseng takes many years before starting the harvest. Considering this, it is better to mix products that have different growing period. For example, rather than cultivating only wild ginseng that takes at least 7 to 8 years, farmers can grow wild greens and can expect some income that can be used to maintain farm until full-scale ginseng harvest. To find the right spot for growing the product in farm is essential for the success. It is suggest to do trial and error to find the right spot before starting the farm. One way of it is to require the growing test result when submit the farming plan to be selected in governmen program.
When selecting the candidate for the government-sponsored business, cultivating experience, farm scale, the way to acquire the operation cost, land ownership should be checked carefully.



Researchers: Kyung-Taek Min, Ho-Gun Chong, Cheol-Su Chang, Ji-Min Moon
Research period: 2012. 1. - 2012. 12.
E-mail address: minkt@krei.re.kr