식량 위기의 역설: 땅은 비옥해도 농사지을 손은 어디로 사라졌나 > K-wave Trends

Through international joint research, Professor Kim Hyeong-jun's research team at KAIST's Department of AI and Future Studies has identified that the key constraint on future food production is the decline in agricultural labor, not the lack of farmland. The research team built a model that combined population change, economic growth, and technological development scenarios, breaking away from the existing method of simply considering the physical availability of land and substituting the actual size of the population capable of farming as a variable. As a result, it was revealed that the rapid decline in agricultural manpower in most regions of the world is fundamentally blocking the use of farmland. Even in areas where the climate and soil are optimal for agriculture, food production becomes impossible if there are no workers to manage it. This is a very painful warning to us that population structure change is emerging as a more direct and powerful threat to food security than climate change.

Optimism that rapid advancements in technology will save the future of agriculture has also been tested again through this study. Of course, the introduction of smart farms or automated devices can contribute to expanding the per capita cultivation area, but this brings with it another challenge: changes in industrial structure. As the economy develops, there is a clear tendency for labor to move from rural areas to manufacturing or service industries, which ultimately creates a paradox that accelerates the rate of population extinction in rural areas. No matter how advanced a technology is introduced, if the minimum number of people to operate the technology and take care of the crops is not secured, productivity improvement will inevitably be limited. In other words, technology is only a tool for production, and the absence of agricultural workers who can put it into practice is the most fundamental and structural contradiction in modern agriculture.

Food security now goes beyond a country's agricultural policy and is directly linked to complex international issues such as labor mobility and migration policy. The research team warned that if population movement between countries is restricted, developed countries will experience severe agricultural manpower shortages, and some low-income countries may experience an imbalance in which excessive agricultural populations stagnate. This suggests that food issues are closely linked to the distribution of human resources across borders. In this situation, the government must prepare practical policy responses to increase the efficiency of farmland management while stably securing and protecting human resources in agricultural fields. A nationwide survey of farmland and overhaul of illegal regulations can be considered a basic step to respond to this macro crisis.

In fact, cities across the country, including Pohang and Gimpo, are conducting large-scale surveys to eliminate speculative factors in farmland and create an agricultural environment centered on actual cultivation. This is a will to go beyond simple administrative procedures and to correct the management system so that limited farmland can be used for its original purpose. In particular, it is a strategy to catch farmers who are trying to leave agricultural fields and protect the production base of rural areas by preventing unauthorized fallow or illegal leases and protecting the rights and interests of tenant farmers. Youth employment policies, such as the public sector work experience program mentioned by Deputy Prime Minister Koo Yun-cheol, are also interpreted as part of policy efforts to simultaneously resolve the manpower shortage in agricultural fields and social employment anxiety. How to harmoniously connect physical assets such as farmland and human resources such as people has emerged as a key task for national survival.