South Korea halves pulse purchases after subsidized strategic-crop land more than doubled

That soybean stock is about four times the 30,000 tons of pulses the state plans to buy next year ^[1]. Wheat stocks grew more slowly, by 20,200 tons or about 49%, to 61,200 tons ^[2]. That is still about three times next year's 20,000-ton wheat plan ^[8][3].

The area paid under the summer scheme grew about 2.2 times in two years ^[4], and pulses took 58% of it last year ^[5]. Pulses are also where state buying falls furthest: by half, against a 31% cut for wheat ^[7][8]. The published cuts cover purchase volumes and commercialization spending, which loses 14.23 billion won ^[6]. The report does not say whether the per-hectare direct payment changes. If that payment holds, Seoul keeps paying farmers to plant pulses while taking less of the harvest, and the farm carries the price risk on the difference.

Seoul has done versions of this before. Since 2003 it has run four programs to curb rice output: paddy fallowing from 2003 to 2005, income diversification from 2011 to 2013, alternative crops in paddies from 2018 to 2020, and the strategic-crop direct payment since 2023 ^[9]. Each of the first three lasted three years ^[7]. The eligible crops changed too. In 2011 any non-rice crop qualified. The next year the list narrowed to soybeans, forage crops and processing rice ^[10], and the current scheme's list has been adjusted every year since it began ^[11].

The ministry has not determined whether farmers in those earlier rounds kept the crops they switched to or went back to rice ^[13].

Next year can go one of several ways. Private processors could take the pulses the state stops buying, at prices that keep planting near last year's 32,100 hectares ^[5]. In that case the cut is stock management and farmers lose little. Farmers could instead drift back to rice and rebuild the glut the scheme was set up to ease ^[1]. Seoul could also reverse the cut, given that it has changed the crop list every year since 2023 ^[11]. I'd expect the second, at least in part. The state can draw down its stockpile. Farmers who put money into facilities and machinery for the new crops ^[17] need a buyer every harvest. Strong private demand for pulses next year would prove that view wrong.

Rep. Shin Jang-sik of the Rebuilding Korea Party, who obtained the stockpile figures from the ministry ^[14], wants the risk kept off the farm. "The risk of policy change must not be shifted onto farmers who trusted the government, changed their crops and invested in facilities and machinery," Shin said ^[15]. "Production, consumption, processing and government stockpiling need to be designed as a single medium- to long-term supply and demand plan," he said ^[16].