As the government pushes for decentralization as a national task, there is a need to reform related systems and policies to promote more realistic and efficient policy measures. It will be possible by enhancing local autonomy in rural areas. The existing centralized decision-making process has faced limitations as it failed to consider the characteristics and circumstances of local governments in rural areas. This study aims to analyze the effects of various aspects such as public financing, local planning, and governance that might result from the decentralization of agricultural and rural policy. The significant findings and conclusions are as follows:
If the current decentralization of the fiscal policy proceeds without any change in specific methods or contents, it is difficult to guarantee that the resources transferred from the central government to local governments will be used for agricultural projects. As a result, farm budgets may be reduced in rural areas. And the current fiscal decentralization, which makes the local consumption tax rate the primary means, could deepen the fiscal disparity among rural areas. In order to dispel these concerns and improve the effect of decentralization, the government-funded budgets have given more power and discretion to local governments by improving the system of government-funded subsidies. In the long run, there is a need to consider a “horizontal local fiscal adjustment system” that can reasonably allocate local transfer of funds in agricultural administration.
The introduction of the planning agreement system has been discussed as a way to promote the government-sponsored agricultural and government projects that can effectively inject funds into local governments while increasing local decision-making discretion. The plan agreement system also is to shift the rural policy direction from the subsidy-centered to the plan-centered. However, there is a part that needs to be discussed and supplemented in order to introduce the planning agreement system in the agricultural administration field. First, a strategy of moving forward to the plan agreement system by carefully analyzing the experiences of the government-sponsored subsidies should be pursued. Second, if two pillars of decentralization are called “financial decentralization” and “governance decentralization,” it is not enough to guarantee local governments the right of policy project planning. Institutional arrangements should be in place for local governments to integrate their agendas into the planning process. Third, it is also necessary to devise a system that provides incentives for the local private sector to form and organize agro-related agendas.
There are also policy challenges facing local governments. In particular, in terms of autonomy, efforts should be made to satisfy the following conditions. First, the direct stakeholders of local agricultural administrations or private-sector/ local organizations should regularly discuss local agricultural agendas Second, a representative body should be formed for collecting and discussing the opinions of the residents concerning local agriculture. A robust legislation strategy should be prepared while a representative body to perform functions which are difficult to carry out under the current authority and the work scope of the local agricultural council should be established. Third, local farming based on community participation and self-government will be realized through concrete policy project planning, implementation, and evaluation process. Also, it is necessary to foster activist functions to assist in all the processes.


Researchers: Kim Jeongseop, Hwang Euisik, Kim Yonglyoul, Kim Jeongseung, Yoon Chaebeen, Kang Maya, Lee Dokyung, Kim Taegon
Research period: 2019. 1. ~ 2019. 12.
E-mail address: jskkjs@krei.re.kr