The Korea Rural Economic Institute (KREI) hosted an academic seminar on “Returning to Farming and Rural Areas and Rural Welfare” with the Rural Welfare Forum at the EL Tower, Seoul July 11, emphasizing the need for active policies to increase positive effects of returning to farming and rural regions on rural communities and to reduce negative factors.
 

KREI research director Park Daeshik stressed, “To decrease negative effects of returning to farming and rural areas on rural communities, it is necessary to seek improvement plans with a focus on solving conflicts and strengthening cooperation between existing residents and people who returned to rural regions. Also, the central and local governments should strengthen policy responses to farmland shortages and difficulty in scaling up farmland.”
 

KREI senior research fellow Ma Sangjin said, “Measures are needed to enable people returning to farming and rural areas with various talents and expertise to participate in their community.” He emphasized that it is required to solve the problem of insufficient relevant information, the biggest obstacle, and promote local government units’ function of mediating and developing jobs.
 

KREI senior research fellow Kim Jeongseop proposed that the central and local governments’ diverse policies on returning to farming and rural regions should reorganize rural communities from a social point of view, beyond the perspective of support for individuals returning to rural areas.