South Korea’s Land Audit Threatens 47% of Tenant Farmers

Translation result.A nationwide farmland survey has stirred unrest across rural communities. The government says it will root out speculative landholdings, but tenant farmers on the ground are the ones left anxious. Absentee owners have begun terminating leases and demanding tenants vacate the land. For farmers who have already sown their fields, those orders are a sudden shock. Some owners even plant orchards or stage sham cultivation to avoid scrutiny. That is why farmer groups in Jeju are setting up a Tenant Farmer Protection Center. Local estimates suggest outsiders may own as much as 70% of Jeju’s farmland, and the survey could paradoxically undermine the island’s agricultural base.The farmland audit, which began on the 18th of this month, will run for two years. This year officials will investigate land acquired since the Farmland Act took effect in 1996; next year they will examine earlier acquisitions. Authorities plan to scrutinize 10 priority categories — including land in the Seoul metropolitan area, land in designated transaction-permit zones, and farmland owned by foreigners or agricultural corporations — and will deploy drones where necessary. The government says it will impose tough penalties on speculative holdings after the probe.Still, rural communities worry that tenant farmers will bear the cost. With sham lease arrangements widespread — often used to claim direct-payment subsidies or tax benefits — absentee owners facing sale orders can simply cut contracts and claim, “I’ll farm it myself.” As of 2024, 47% of farmers are tenants, and some forecasts project that share will exceed 80% by 2030. An aging population means fewer people will farm directly, and ownership is increasingly divorced from day-to-day farm management. Although the government has expanded funding to purchase public rental farmland to record levels and loosened eligibility rules to protect actual cultivators, policy has not kept pace with rapid change.The constitutional principle that “only those who farm the land should own it” remains, but reality has shifted: the central question now is who actually cultivates the land, not merely who holds title. Policymakers should move beyond an ownership-centered approach and refocus policy on putting farmland to productive use — a shift that would help ease tenant farmers’ insecurity.