The U.S. Agricultural Policy, CSA and Their Implications for Korean Agriculture

One of aims in this paper was to examine structural changes in the U.S. rural areas and farms and draw major characteristics from them. Population aging, decrease in population and polarization in farms by size were confirmed as expected. It's also identified that small farms are still absolutely majority in numbers, but a few large farms are definitely mainstream of U.S. agriculture in terms of production of agricultural and livestock products. The analyses of nature of such U.S. farm structure shows that American Farm subsidy policies and the SNAP eventually brought about growth of large farms through payment system in favor of large farms and creation of a hugh domestic food market. It's emphasized in this paper that support for CSA farms and their institutionalization across the country might be a very realistic and effective measures for food security and the future of U.S. agriculture including sustainable farming. This paper highlights that Korea should pay special attention to this point, because Korean agriculture confronts much more serious crisis of reproduction caused mainly by rapid population aging and decrease than America. In this context, this study argues that Korea really needs nationwide spread of CSA farms as an important breakthrough for solving crises of food security much further acutely than the United States, and that the Korean government should actively support CSA farms through multilateral policies favorable to small farms from now on.