The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs announced that it will significantly expand the scale of customized land support for young farmers and reform the system. Accordingly, the supply of public reserve rental farmland, which is leased to young farmers at low rents for long periods, will be expanded from 2,500ha this year to 4,200ha next year, an increase of about 70%. Additionally, the pre-lease and post-sale project, which allows young farmers with insufficient initial capital to lease land for 10-30 years and then purchase it, will be expanded from 50ha this year to 200ha next year, a fourfold increase.
The support limits for the customized land support project will also be raised. The restrictions based on farming experience will be removed, and the support limits for each project, such as leasing according to the scale of management, will be increased by 0.5-1.0ha to help farmers scale up. Additionally, the pre-lease and post-sale project, which was previously conducted through annual public offerings due to limited project volume, will be changed to year-round application and support. A new method will also be introduced to purchase and lease large-scale high-quality farmland to create startup towns for young farmers.
In 2026, a pilot project will be launched in Miryang, Gyeongsangnam-do. This project aims to expand nationwide so that young farmers can engage in large-scale farming, such as smart farms, on consolidated farmland. A new system will also be introduced to allow young farmers to exchange newly leased farmland with existing leased farmland if the existing leased farmland is far from their main farming area.
The farmland bank portal will be revamped from a text-based system to a geographic information system (GIS) to provide information on the status of leased farmland, its location on the map, crop cultivation history, and transaction prices. This will allow young farmers and other project applicants to intuitively check rental listings on the map and apply for farmland leases, significantly improving information accessibility. Additionally, a direct farmland transaction market will be introduced within the farmland bank portal, and farmland listings on private land transaction platforms will be linked.