Abstract

This study looks into and seeks to explain the causes of the rapid increase in the ‘conversion of farmland’ in Korea in the 1980s and the interests of the state involved in the phenomenon of ‘conversion of farmland’. Existing studies on ‘conversion of farmland’ mainly understand ‘conversion of farmland’ as an inevitable phenomenon due to urbanization or recognized it as a problem due to insufficient systems and policies. This study seeks to develop a discussion based on the awareness of the problem that such an approach does not explain the characteristics of ‘conversion of farmland’ in Korea and cannot be a causal analysis to determine the cause of ‘conversion of farmland’. The reason for the rapid increase in ‘conversion of farmland’ in the mid-1980s was that with the emergence of a liberal agricultural policies and the development of farmland mobility policies, farmland could be used as a land resource to facilitate development gain and reinvestment. The emergence of a liberal agricultural policies weakened the cause of farmland conservation at the national level. In addition, the state actively utilized development gain formation and reinvestment mechanisms using ‘conversion of farmland’ to cope with the crisis of legitimacy during weak fisical situations. Since public land development introduced after the 1980s was based on the design of re-investing by forming development gain, the government was able to cope with the privatization of development gain while minimizing finances as they proceeded with housing supply and city construction. In implementing this development method, the state bypasses fisical problems by using an agent called a state-owned enterprise for urban development. This analysis was accompanied by a change in the way land resources have been utilized by the strategy adopted by the state to overcome the crisis of legitimacy since the 1980s, and this change suggests that it is being revealed in detail through ‘conversion of farmland’.