2.6 Korea - Small-scale Owner-operator
After independence, a number of motives led to a land reform.
Political instability and the spread of communistic ideas,
availability of land from former Japanese owners, hindrance
of productivity increase, because the high rent made investments
impossible, and the need to provide subsistence for the large
number of refugees were of particular importance. The main
goals of this reform, enacted in 1950 and implemented over
a long period because of the disruption caused by the Korean
war, were of an egalitarian type, like the abolition of tenancy,
the limitation of land-ownership, and a land-to-the-tiller
policy.
The ceiling was fixed at 3 ha (with the exception of institutional
farms and perennial crops). By and large, the law was implemented.
About 1.5 million peasants received 530,000 ha of land. The
political and social instability caused by the former ownership
pattern was removed, and the new owners responded to the increasing
demand for food by the cities with a more intensive cultivation,
application of fertilizers, expansion of double cropping,
and production of fruit and vegetables. Tenancy was never
abolished, but substantially reduced. The farms are rather
small; only 2 per cent have more than 3 ha and another 5 per
cent between 2-3 ha. The majority of the 2.5 million holdings
are even smaller. Two-thirds = 1.7 .million are less than
1 ha, and about one-fourth = 670,000 have between 1-2 ha of
land. The average size is 0.9 ha. While this farm structure
met the needs of the post-war period, it has been the object
of criticism in recent years with the rapid industrialization,
increasing wage levels, beginning mechanization, considerable
outmigration from agriculture, especially of the lowincome
farmers.
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