Since Jan. 24, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs has put in place a system of a “temporary lodging facility for farming-based rural sojourn” to respond to the population decline in South Korea's rural areas.
The facilities are temporary lodging facilities with a gross floor area of 33 square meters or less — not including ancillary facilities such as parking spaces and septic tanks, etc. — built on rural farmland for city dwellers to spend time at for weekend farming or farming experiences.
In South Korea, spending time in temporary lodging facilities is emerging as a new way of life that spans both urban and rural areas.
According to data from the Korea Rural Economic Institute, the percentage of urban dwellers who said they wanted to retire to a rural area or live as a farmer reached a record high of 57.3 percent. Not only older people, but young adults are also seeing rural areas as places of new opportunities. The number of businesses in rural South Korea grew by 7 percent on average annually from 2010 to 2022, which was higher than the national average.
To meet the needs of the trend, the ministry since last year has been implementing a rural place-making plan as a new platform to shape the future of rural areas, with local communities at the helm.
Under the plan, governments of cities and counties — in South Korea, a county ("gun") is an administrative unit below the city level — and residents there work together and sketch out a spatial plan based on the needs and capabilities of their communities. The ministry then rounds off the plan by providing a complete package of financial support for those local governments and relaxing related regulations. Following this mechanism, 100 or more out of 139 cities and counties have been developing spatial plans since the Act on Support for Rural Spatial Restructuring and Regeneration came into force in March 2024. To back the implementation of those plans, the ministry has worked out a strategic plan to promote rural place-making.
Under the strategic plan, the ministry will ramp up financial support to ensure that rural place-making plans established by governments of cities and counties can be converted to practice as planned.
Specifically, if governments of cities and counties have established their own rural place-making plans, the ministry and local governments sign an agreement under which the ministry’s financial support is provided for the projects worth a maximum of 30 billion won ($21 million) described in such rural place-making plans. Starting from 2026, the financial support will be increased to 40 billion won. Also, in the case that governments of cities and counties designate rural spaces as special-purpose zones for a certain land use, such as residential, industrial, livestock farming, etc., the ministry will give preferential support to projects related to such zones.
The ministry will additionally improve regulations on farmland.
For instance, city mayors or heads of county governments will be granted extended authority to divert a maximum of 10 hectares of farmland inside rural special-purpose zones. In addition, a facility can be built on farmland inside a rural special-purpose zone in the case that the facility suits the purpose of the zone — e.g., community facilities such as welfare facilities, sport facilities, etc., in a rural village protection zone — and the application for such construction is submitted to and received by a local government. The process of such construction is streamlined when the requirement is limited to submission and receipt of such an application, not extended to include approval by a local government.
The ministry will also provide opportunities for rural residents to participate actively in discovering challenges facing their communities, developing solutions to those challenges and identifying a project to creatively regenerate their rural communities. Through such engagement of rural residents, the ministry will create an environment where the needs and ideas of rural communities are well incorporated into rural place-making. To breathe new life into rural areas, the ministry will pursue legislative improvement in a speedy manner while focusing efforts on developing a rural regeneration model that is practical and can bring out tangible outcomes for local residents in close collaboration with local governments and related ministries.
Rural South Korea, accounting for 89 percent of the national territory, is full of potential and possibilities. We are seeing a growing number of success stories where the value of rural areas is restored by local governments viewing rural areas as new resources and utilizing them in various ways.
A case in point is the city of Mungyeong, North Gyeongsang Province. The city remodeled traditional Korean houses, or hanok, built in the 1790s, breweries and Japanese-style houses built during Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945) into guesthouses, cafes, stores for selling and buying local food and agricultural produce, etc. This rural regeneration is attracting approximately 120,000 visitors to Mungyeong per year, and the local specialities are contributing to revitalizing its local economy.
So far, the local governments of 75 cities and counties have established rural place-making plans, and the ministry and the local governments signed agreements to provide financial support with approximately 1.88 trillion won for the projects in rural place-making plans.
A brighter future for rural South Korea can be realized if local governments base their rural place-making plans on local resources and the ideas of local residents. The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs will keep up its efforts to remake rural areas into a valuable place where people can live, work and rest and thereby help rural areas act as a catalyst for resolving the national challenges of low birth rates and the declining population.
Song Mi-ryung
Song Mi-ryung is minister of agriculture, food and rural affairs. The views expressed here are the writer's own. -- Ed.
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