Economic Feasibility of Hill Land Development

산지개발(山地開發)의 경제성

A new Farmland Expansion and Development Promotion Law was enacted in 1975. This law authorizes the Government to undertake development within a declared "reclamation area", wherever the land owners are unable to do so. In order to give additional impetus to conversion of waste hilly land into productive farmland, these hilly land development projects were conducted as large scale scheme which include soil fertility improvements such as the application of lime and phosphate. Farmland Expansion and Development Promotion Corps has attempted to undertake annual farm surveys in order to obtain some information about hilly land agriculture and farming operations within the reclamation project areas since 1976. As survey data accumulates, more and more clear picture of hilly land farming come to appear and enable us to conduct in-depth study. Effects of such upland reclamation include converting of previously unproductive slopeland into cultivable farmland for lucrative and commercial farming or food production. Furthermore, idle or marginal resources such as farm labor, equipment and compost would be fully employed. Socio-economic effects would include increases in land value and attitude change of farmers. On the other hand the preservation of natural environments might be damaged to the some extend by the projects. As shown in Table 7, the average farm size increased from 3,156 pyeong($3.3m^2$) to 5,562 pyeong, a 76.2% increase. The proportion of small farms with less than I ha dropped from 59.8% to 34.4%, but that of the large farms over 2 ha rose from 13.1% to 32.0% (See Table 8). The survey results indicate that as the farming on reclaimed uplands become time-honored, the acreage devoted for food crop production decreases against the economic crop growing acreage (see Table 6). For example, in the case of uplands reclaimed in 1972, the ratio of food crop acreages decreased from 99.7% in 1972 to 62.5% in 1977, whereas that of economic crop acreages increased from 0.3% in 1972 to 37.5% in 1977. The government used to actively encourage the farmers to carry out food crop production in the reclaimed upland targting toward the realization of self-sufficiency in food grains. It is, however, apparent that the farmers did hardly take the government advises as far as their economic interest were concerned. Yield per 10a. of various crops from the reclaimed uplands by year were surveyed as seen in Table 12. On the average, barley production in the reclaimed areas achieved 83.3% of the average unit yield from the existing upland in its 5 th year. Soybean yields showed a modest increase from 64% in the first year to 95%, in the 5 th year. In contrast, economic crops such as red pepper, totacco and radish achieved their maximum target yields in 3 years from starting to cultivate on the reclaimed farms. In order to test the post economic viability, an economic analysis was performed for each of selected subprojects on the basis of the data obtained through survey. The average actual internal economic rate of return on upland reclamation investments was found to be 20.3% which exceeded other types of projects of land and water development such as tidal land reclamation, irrigation or paddy rearrangement. The actual IRRs of subcategories of upland reclamation projects varied from 17.9% to 21.4% depending upon the kinds of cropping system adopted in each reclaimed areas such as food, economic, fruit or forage crops.

농업(農業)의 기대성장(期待成長)과 현실성장을 비교(比較)하기 위하여 1953-77. 기간(期間)을 3단계(段階)로 구분하여 역사적접근법(歷史的接近法)을 시도(試圖)하였으며 농경지(農耕地)의 타목적전환과 전작물(田作物)의 수요(需要)를 전망(展望)하였다. 야산개발의 필요성(必要性)을 검토(檢討)하기 위하여는 농경지(農耕地)의 외연적확대가 가능(可能)한 가를 살펴보았으며 개간지(開墾地)의 작부유형(作付類型)을 분류(分類)하였다. 야산개발의 지역농업(地域農業)에 미친 효과로는 개간농가(開墾農家)의 경영규모확대와 경지규모별호수분포가 대농화경향(大農化傾向)을 보이는 것 같고 개간지(開墾地)의 지가가 기경지(旣耕地)보다 빠른 상승율(上昇率)을 보였다. 야산개발지의 생산성(生産性)은 6년차(年次)만 되면 기경지수준에 가깝게 되고 따라서 소득지수도 이와 유사(類似)한 경향(傾向)을 보이고 있다. 야산개발사업의 수익성은 다른 토지개발사업보다 높고 작목별(作目別)로 보면 식량작물(食糧作物)보다는 경제작물이 높고 단작(單作)보다는 이모작(二毛作)의 경우가 유리(有利)하게 나타났다.