The purpose of this study was to comprehensively examine various human resource development policies that have been implemented in the past, including the 2004 master plan to foster elite-farmers, and prepare a new human resource development plan that takes into account recent changes in the environment of agriculture, forestry, fisheries and the food industry. To this end, this study examined agricultural human resource development policies of the past and conducted a comparative case study of human resource development policies in non-agricultural fields. Past agricultural workforce development projects were evaluated and related problems were identified through interviews with experts and consultative meetings.

The policies that were examined include those that are related to development of agricultural and fishery schools, farmer successors, specialized farmers, farm enterprises, “new intellectual farmers,” leading farm enterprises, and farm management consulting, education and training of farmers, and assistance provided to support urban residents returning to farms and rural areas. The following implications are drawn through the examination of above major agricultural workforce development policies that have been implemented since 1980. Although those projects that were implemented before the comprehensive elite-farmer development plan were partially helpful in securing farmers and improving competitiveness, they were unable to solve the problems that farmers actually experience on the field and improve the way farms are managed since the projects lacked coordination among them and most of the support projects didn't provide much assistance other than financial help.

The comprehensive plan to foster elite-farmers was set up in 2004 as a ten-year project and as part of a master plan to develop agriculture and rural areas. The results of an interim evaluation of the plan can be summarized as follows.
- The comprehensive elite-farmer development plan is meaningful in that it is the first comprehensive plan under which all previous projects to foster farmers were reviewed and coordinated under a single vision and implemented in harmony with the overall agricultural policy.
- Under the comprehensive plan to foster elite-farmers, a vision was set to foster 200,000 farm households (one quarter of total farm households) whose income exceeds the average income of urban workers and who take charge of over 50% of total agricultural production. However, it seems that achieving the vision and goals of each detailed project would be difficult to achieve.
- The original target of fostering new farmers could not be achieved since there was an annual inflow of 2,000~2,500 new farm owners who are aged less than 50. Since most of the new farmers are graduates of non-agricultural schools, it is necessary to stimulate the inflow of young graduates of agricultural schools.
- Although the original goal of assisting the settlement of new farmers is difficult to achieve because it is a little unrealistic, there were more new farmers settling in rural areas through the farmer-successor fostering project than before the comprehensive plan.
- Education and consultancy assistance were provided to farmers in an aim to improve their expertise and farm management. To evaluate the result of the assistance, a performance assessment was made to see if there were any changes in the amount of agricultural products sold by farmers. According to the assessment, it was found that even though the number of farm households selling agricultural products on a large scale has increased, it was far short of reaching the original target.
- Concerning the post-management of human resource development, various activities were carried out at the central level, such as phased-out implementation and evaluation of human resource development projects and construction of a manpower database, assisted by the Center for Rural Information and Culture and Agriculture Human Resource Development Institute. However, there wasn't a sufficient monitoring system to manage human resource development projects at the department level within the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and agricultural workforce development projects were inadequately coordinated at the regional level.

This study examined human resource development projects that are being carried out by non-agricultural ministries in their respective sectors, and some project examples that are worthy of benchmarking for the agricultural industry are summarized.
Based on the review of past human resource development policies and the analysis and evaluation of the comprehensive plan to develop farmers, as well as the aforementioned review of human resource development projects in non-agricultural fields, some suggestions were made, through expert consultations, on how to improve policies aimed at developing agricultural human resources.
Farmers' Role Model: Farmers who lead sustainable agriculture should be fostered through an agricultural workforce development policy. In order to open the door to sustainable agriculture, farmers should be professional managers, ethical producers and rich farmers who gain wealth with the help of a human resource development policy.
- Affluent farmers: farmers who are wealthy enough to lead a life that enables them to enjoy the urban standard of living even if they live in a rural area and who proudly chose farming as a profession.
- Professional managers: farmers who have technical expertise and mana -gement skills to wisely cope with management crises and produce high-quality agricultural crops safely and stably, and who understand the value of life by practicing creative management.
- Ethical producers: farmers who produce safe agricultural food and work for both their own advancement and development of neighbors and rural villages, and who take social responsibility as protectors of multi-functional agriculture and rural villages.
Human resource development stages: Human resource development is categorized into five stages by adopting a farm household classification method that classifies farmers into full-time farmers and part-time farmers, as has been used recently by the agricultural statistics and adopted by advanced countries. Potential and preliminary stages were reset centering around full-time farmers and retirement stage was added to the following five stages: potential stage → preliminary stage → entry stage → settlement stage → retirement stage.
Agricultural Human Resource Development Policy Goals: Foster 200,000 full-time farm households (whose cultivated farmland is more than 3ha or whose annual sales of agricultural and livestock products is over 20 million won) by 2020 and make them responsible for over half of total agricultural production.
Policy Direction for Agricultural Human Resource Development: The basic strategy (or principle) for the current comprehensive plan should be maintained and human resource development projects should be coordinated more closely (into packages). The linkage of human and material resources, too, should be tightly positioned, and it is necessary to strengthen the way a human resource pool is secured during the potential and preliminary stages.
Detailed Projects: Detailed projects that need to be implemented in addition to the current projects were suggested by sector.
- Inflow of newcomers: Farming-related educational programs at agricultural high schools and universities should be strengthened, and projects that stimulate the succession of farming should be implemented along with the projects to accelerate the inflow of university students whose major is not agriculture and agricultural school graduates whose family background is not related to agriculture.
- Support for agricultural settlement: Special task force (intermediate support) is designated to provide assistance for settlement of farmer successors.
- Development of professionalism (education + consulting): Strengthen educa- tional programs in the fields of accounting and risk management, social responsibility, and public good.
- Finding potential workers: Expand projects carried out by related orga- nizations (actively use sample schools), and expand student inflows for education in rural areas, job exploration tours, and educational programs on eating habits.
- Improvement of agricultural human resource development system: Construct a performance evaluation system that can evaluate each detailed project and conduct surveys about the state of agricultural workforce.


Researchers: Ma Sang-Jin, Park Sungjae, Kim Kangho
Research period: 2010. 12. - 2011. 4.
E-mail address: msj@krei.re.kr