Changes in Agricultural Growth Patterns and Their Impacts on the Sustainability of the Agroecosystem in Korea

In Korea, the growth of agricultural productivity was for a while the main motor for agricultural growth over the past three decades. Highly intensified farming based on widespread adoption of biochemical technology has been contributed to stable supply of a major staple food since the 1960. The need has increased for changes that has raised land productivity of agriculture. As a result, the agricultural growth or developing production system for higher food supply followed the direction to the path of more intensively managed agroecosystem. Environmental issues in connection with farm production system at present in Korea is mostly related to surfacewater contamination in a river or lake.