The Irrational Land Use in South Korea and Other Parts of the World -

1,160 words) Section I challenges Nobel laureate Schultz’s assertions: (1) small farmers are rational; (2) low income countries saddled with traditional agriculture have not the problem of many farmers leaving agriculture for nonfarm jobs; (3) part-time farming can be efficient; (4) economies of scale do not exist in agriculture; and (5) investment in human capital counts much more than institutional changes and is the key to agricultural growth. It raises a hypothesis, i.e., with the same conditions (health, age, gender, diligence, education, skills, intelligence, information, etc.), in comparison with full-time farming, part-time farming cannot be efficient in terms of land use; while that for selfconsumption is inefficient but can be rational (mainly as an economic, social and technological buffer), that beyond self-consumption both inefficient and irrational. It reveals that irrational land use by able-bodied part-time and absent small farmers earning higher off-farm income (who have no incentive to lease their irrationally used land to full-time farmers for efficient use by achieving economies of scale and reducing costs), has become a global obstacle with both public and private land ownership, traditional and modern agriculture, fragmented small land and joinedly enlarged land, low and high income economies, food under-self-sufficiency and overproduction, and developing and developed countries, albeit land property rights have been defined and sale and lease allowed, thus hampering agricultural and rural development and poverty reduction (especially in developing countries), and causing agricultural protectionism (particularly in developed countries), environmental deterioration, and many other problems. It cites world-wide including South Korean evidence. Section II indicates that Nobel nominee Hirschman overlooks it has hampered the backward and consumption linkage effects on agriculture, and caused import-oriented consumption linkage effects which have substituted domestic products with imports of agricultural and other goods. Section III introduces that suitable solutions have been exercised by China under public land ownership through an effective macro-micro coordination between the government and villages to successfully resolve under-self-sufficiency, prevent overproduction and improve the environment. Section IV indicates that such solutions have not yet been adopted under private land ownership in Africa, Asia, Americas and Europe. It presents two Western European legislations already effectively and successfully implemented under private landownership at the food underself-sufficiency stage, i.e., (1) to oblige landowners to either cultivate land or lease it for farming once in Denmark, Germany and the UK and still in Norway, and (2) to give farmers the right to till any unor insufficiently cultivated land once in Italy and the EU. They all established institutions from macro to micro levels to implement the legislations. At the overproduction stage there is no effective and appropriate solution. It analyzes their shortcomings at the under-self-sufficiency stage, i.e., they oblige part-time and absent landowners to lease out all their land, so that they could not cater self-consumption need and keep farming skills; and once lost off-farm jobs, would either have no access to the land rented out, or have to withdraw it, affecting the lessees. It points out their fundamental dilemma at the overproduction stage (obliging landowners to do so would cause overproduction; but if not, much land would be used irrationally, then how to achieve economies of scale, reduce costs and compete with other countries?) and derived dilemmas. Without a solution, the EU turned to on one hand protect farmers by a coupling between subsidies and production so as to avoid abandonment of production (which caused overproduction, and plus high distorting price supports, export aids and import tariffs have made farmers less competitive and harmed consumers and taxpayers and developing countries), and on the other pay farmers to set-aside land to reduce overproduction. Thus the EU correctly proposed in July 2002 to completely decouple subsidies from production, which however failed in June 2003 because it could not avoid abandonment of production, and the EU has had to retreat to still keep a part of the coupling while paying farmers to set aside some highly productive land to reduce overproduction. Once the USA, Canada, South Korea, and Japan have established the will to abolish their agricultural protectionism, they would