Development Process of Agriculture And Technology -A Case Study of Korea

Development process of agricultural technology has been studied with a case study of Korean agriculture. Technological is considered as a transformer of inputs into outputs and hence technological appropriateness, an important aspect of agricultural development strategies, is considered as a dynamic concepts. Considering the concept of agricultural system as a delivery system for providing essential materials and services to producers and consumers, it has been divided into two major groups of dimensions vis. external challenge dimensions and internal response dimensions. Market, investment and agro-ecosystem constitute the external challenge dimensions : whereas trade , technology as well as production and resources allocation constitute internal response dimensions. The system manager is responsible for maintaining equilibrium in the mentioned six sub-systems. Two kinds of alternatives paths of technological development viz. land saving technology and labour saving technolog have been studied. Technology is considered as a combination of four basic components viz. facilities, abilities, facts and frameworks. Adoption of innovation in agriculture depends on profitability, awareness, risk aversion, financial capacity, institutional infrastructure, availability of physical inputs and adaptability to the local conditions. For a cast study of Korea, changes in the agricultural system through external challenge dimensions are investigated. The impacts of industrialization on agro-ecosystem reported are shift of labour from the agricultural sector to non-agricultural sectors and continuously increasing demand of farm the agricultural sector to non-agricultural sectors accompanied by increase in land prices. The impacts on the commodity market discussed are shift in demand from rice, barley and other cereals to meat , dairy products and vegetables : and increasing in supply capacity of agricultural inputs. The process of agricultural development from 1962 to 19 1 9 (i.e. from start of the first to the end of the sixth five year plan) are also discussed in details with several policy measures taken. The trend of agricultural income and productivity are also analyzed. The main cause of increase in the agricultural income is considered as increase in labour productivity. The study revealed that during the span of 1965-88, holding size has not changed significantly, but both the land and labour productivity increased and so did the agricultural income. R&D activities in Korea have changed over time in three stages vix. import of improved technology, localization by adaptive research and technological mastery. For the new technology to be made affordable to farmers, policy measures like fertilizer and food grain exchange system, dual price system in rice and barely and loan for machinery were strengthened.