As the importance of Food Security is becoming an international issue, Korea has to consider positive ‘Agriculture Cooperations’ with Central-Asia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan for establishment of stable food supply foundation in Korea. There are promising measures to invest and cooperate with Central Asia in the agricultural sector, such as direct investment, export of farm machinery.
This study analyzes the current situation of agriculture in Central Asia, and provides strategic expansion ways for agricultural cooperation between Korea and Central Asia by intensifying established researches. Especially, we focused on 3 countries Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia.
Central Asia has traditionally favorable natural environment for agriculture, and Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are the most important agricultural nations in the world since the Soviet Union. According to FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) analysis, Kazakhstan is the 11th wheat producer, and Uzbekistan is the 6th cotton producer, then they are classified into major agricultural countries.
Even though agriculture is of great importance in Central Asia, and food security is emerging as new issue in Korea, they do not cooperate each other in agriculture sector. The reason why political condition is unstable, and economic condition including investment environment is also poor in Central Asia, Korean government or corporations have no strong will to entry into Central Asia for investing agriculture or collaborate with Central Asia on agriculture sector. In these days, Korea has tried to cooperate with Uzbekistan by establishing Overseas Agri-Development Center and dispatching Agri- Research group at government level, so we can expect to enlarge the Agriculture Cooperation between Korea-Central Asia.
The most important thing for expanding agriculture cooperation with Central Asia is to establish the investment strategy considering their demands. Korean government policy to securing foreign food base in recent years, Cenral Asia is actually attracting national attention including government, private enterprises, and even individuals. However, they hardly ever invest in agriculture sector.
First of all, we have to understand the current situation and governmental policies in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan, then we have to promote to invest and cooperate in the priority field that Central Asia asks for collaborations. For example, Central Asia needs huge foreign investment in their irrigation facilities and agricultural infra because of lack of water resource and infrastructure for agriculture development. They have strategic policies such as development of rural area and farm modernization, so Korea can initiate them into farming techniques. These ways will be based on the improvement of agriculture cooperation and investment between Korea and Central Asia.