Introduction Methods of Agropark Concept in Saemangeum Reclamation Area

I. INTRODUCTION

Agriculture in South Korea, has been developed around the paddy, but conversion of field use from paddy such as upland, horticulture and fruit production for the cultivation of high-income crops have increased recently (Korea research institute for human settlements. 2011). In addition, the city's population has been increasing steadily, the demand for fresh agricultural products and agricultural supply to the city has increased, and it is difficult to Corresponding author : Seo, Donguk

Tel : 031-400-1836 E-Mail : [email protected]

forecast supply and demand in rapid fluctuations of agricultural prices due to crop slump because of climate change (Seo, 2012).

On the other hand, there are problems in rural areas such as environmental pollution because of increased use of chemical fertilizers and fossil fuel by the intensive agricultural production system, and an increase in energy input costs associated with it. Also, environmental processing costs have increased due to expansion of by-product of industry and agriculture, and waste. The reduction of recreational area and destruction of the rural landscape and senseless development of agricultural area have also become problems (Smeets et al., 2012).

Introduction Methods of Agropark Concept in Saemangeum Reclamation Area

Donguk Seo ∙ Henk Ritzema

∙ Peter Smeets

Rural Research Institute, Korea Rural Community Corporation

Teams Wageningen Environmental Research(Alterra), Wageningen University & Research Center

새만금 간척지 아그로파크 개념 도입 방안 연구

서동욱 ∙ 헹크리쯔마

∙ 피터스미츠

한국농어촌공사, 농어촌연구원

*

와게닝겐 대학연구소, 와게닝겐 환경연구그룹(알테라)

ABSTRACT : 최근 새만금 농업용지에 아그로파크 개념을 적용하기 위한 시도가 이루어지고 있어 새만금 간척지에 현실적

Key words : Agropark, Saemangeum, Agricultural Land, Land Use, Korea

Most of non-rice grains, which are generally imported, would be insufficient to meet the demand in the future.

The production method with a high-cost structure such as energy costs and installation of agricultural facilities, rising prices of imported raw materials, and limited process due to expansion of livestock waste are inevitably detrimental factors to the infinite competition era of agriculture by expanding a free trade agreement (FTA). Furthermore, while the pursuit of quality of life, interest in the environment and rural landscape is very high, activities for the rural experience is increasing more and more (Ruyter and Marieke, 2011).

Under such circumstances, Agropark could be a solution to the problem in the current agriculture (Jan and Tanny, 2005). It can represents the concept of a recycling agriculture to reduce production costs with re-use by-products and agricultural and livestock waste, water, and gas one (Smeets, 2011). Actually, Korean government had tried to plan to introduce Agropark to Saemanguem agricultural land through cooperation with the Netherlands and presenting that they want to make Saemangeum as a mecca of Northeast Asia agricultrue (Jang, 2012). Since the attempt to apply the concept of Agropark into Saemangeum agricultural land recently, based on a thorough understanding of the facts, we need to find how to develop it in a way appropriate to Saemangeum area.

Therefore, in this study, it is intended to present a scheme

of Agropark, which was developed in the Netherlands and which can be applied to Saemangeum (Seo et al., 2014).

II. AGROPARK CONCEPT AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN OF

SAEMANGEUM AGRICULTURAL LAND

Agropark is a spatial cluster of high-productive plant and animal production and processing units in industrial mode combined with the input of high levels of knowledge and technology. The cycles of water, minerals and gases are skillfully closed and the use of fossil energy is minimized, particularly by the processing of various flows of residual- and by-products. Agropark may therefore be seen as the application of industrial ecology in the agrosector (Smeets et al., 2012). Spatial clustering of Agropark in the Netherlands can take many forms and there could also be varied combinations of agricultural and non-agricultural activities. In practice, Agropark can give benefits such as resources recycling, reducing transport requirement, saving the countryside, improving animal welfare, social benefit and so on as shown in Table 1 (Jan and Tanny, 2005).

Benefits Contents

Closing the cycle Various chains can save energy and reduces environmental impact by utilizing wastes and by-products.

Reducing transport requirement

The reduced transport requirement because of activities of production, processing, packaging and distribution in same place.

Saving the countryside By moving agricultural facilities to Agropark near urban, rural area can utilize nature, landscape, housing and recreation with preventing from manure smell, light pollution from glasshouses.

Improving animal welfare Animals are not needed to be transported and can enjoy greater freedom of space because they are born, raised and slaughtered inside Agropark.

Restricting disease outbreaks

Animal disease can be restricted because any animal outside can’t come in Agropark and they can’t contact each other. If disease occur, related Agropark can be separated easily.

Bridging the gap between producer and consumer

Consumer can know well history and process of every products from Agropark, and can ask certificated foods with regard to environment-friendly and animal welfare.

Generating economic and social benefits

Food safety, less congestion on the roads, reduced environmental impact, improved animal welfare, more attractive countryside. After all, these benefits can acquire social benefit from improving health and welfare and preserving rural space in the long-term.

Table 1. The benefits of spatial clustering (Jan and Tanny, 2005)

Figure 1 shows that horizontal and vertical integration of Agropark is the clustering of components of different production chains. For example, the New Mixed Farm in the Netherlands operate a co-digester to produce biogas and turn that into power, CO

and heat. The produced CO

will be delivered to a nearby greenhouse complex, while the heat and power were to be used inside the livestock

chains and also will be delivered to a nearby mushroom production farm (Smeets et al., 2012).

Saemangeum agricultural land (8,570 ㏊) was planned to be developed with features such as composite grain complex, horticulture, organic farming complex with natural circulation, advanced agricultural test complex, large scale agricultural and fishing companies, rural cities, ecological

Figure 2. Development plan of Saemangeum agricultural land (2011)

Figure 1. Horizontal & Vertical integration of Agropark(Smeets et al., 2012)

tourism complex, and others as shown in Figure 2 (Korea research institute for human settlements. 2011). The land-use planning of agricultural land has been changed recently to apply the concept of Agropark where clustering of production, processing and distribution of agricultural products can exist, and also the production of fertilizer, feed and energy, and reuse of agriculture by-products can be possible.

The original plan of the Saemangeum development already includes many elements necessary for Agropark such as highway and the airport near the existing industrial park as well as new harbor near reclaimed land where the logistics is in a good location in terms of industrial activity.

However, the land-use planning of agricultural land defines the boundaries of the area to each function. The 11 complex charged in each function are located individually without connections each other in current land use plan of Saemangeum agricultural land although Agropark concept from the Netherlands is network between other functions spatially at a same place.

The plan don’t contain real Agropark concept. So, before considering to adopt Agropark in Saemangeum agricultural land, we had to define the differences between characteristic of Agropark and land use plan of Saemangeum :

First, Agropark is provided with a recycling-oriented agricultural system. Therefore, it is necessary to take advantage of the environment-friendly energy such as waste heat, waste carbon, and renewable energy to supply carbon dioxide fertilization, heating and air-conditioning energy source required in horticulture.

Second, Agropark do not need a large space from the beginning. Agropark is based on the Orgware which is made by participants who have the same purpose and whose interests match each other to come together. The Orgware is possible to vertically integrate for the first time, but it is difficult to perform without horizontal integration. The "Greenport Shanghai" near Shanghai, China began to make the Agropark of 2,700 ha from 2006.

However, the Orgware that participants fill this space is not yet been configured in the steps that are required to start a business after the design in 2010, making all the project pending until now. Therefore, Agropark plan should have in-built mechanism to start from a small size with

limited activities and to expand it gradually. Even in the Netherlands, Agriport A7 joined the CHP (combined heat and power generation) and greenhouse and BioparkTerneuzen joined a sugar cane processing plant and production complex (Agriport A7, 2016).

Third, there are some features that duplicate others.

Agropark facilities of production, processing and distribution, biomass processing and resources circulation, and other experience and service may be made to overlap each function in agricultural land such as horticulture, organic agriculture, environment complex, agricultural theme park, etc.

Fourth, the plan of agricultural land is unrelated to the overall plan of Saemangeum land use. In Agropark, it is possible to dove-tail agriculture with certain non-agricultural but industrial elements. Thus, the function of the industry is also included in the agricultural land, and these industrial facilities can impact with other land besides agricultural land. For example, industrial waste such as gas and heat required for the Agropark can also be supplied with industrial park nearby without the need of creating new industrial facilities on the agricultural land. The current plan of Saemangeum land development has not considered these possibilities.

III. APPLICATION OF AGROPARK

Overall master plan of agricultural land use in Saemangeum already has been established before the concept of Agropark came into being. Attempt to apply Agropark concept can’t change the current master plan totally. Thus, Wageningen University & Research Center (WUR) suggested that the agricultural land would be made as metropolitan food cluster in 2012 (Smeets, 2012). But, this suggestion is also difficult to accept because construction work in accordance with the current plan has already started in 2013. In this study, therefore, the methods how to implement and apply the Agropark concept is divided into two parts: (1) Without considering the current master plan and (2) Considering it.

(1) When the current land use planning of agricultural

land is not considered: When the initial draft design of the

Agropark was announced in the Netherlands for the first

time, there were many controversies and discussions (Jan

and Tanny, 2005). There was objection by consumers to raise animals in a building which is housed side by side of a factory. Farmers who become familiar with their own rural space opposed to Agropark to try to keep the agriculture of the family unit. There was no hard evidence yet to support the claim that it become a plus environmentally more than anything or become profit to investors and promotion of animal welfare and economic efficiency, and reduce occurrences of animal disease.

Therefore, Agropark designed originally had many contents, but when it became functional, two or more functions were combined. In Netherlands, network such as the seed Valley and Food Valley is well-equipped and agricultural logistics is relatively developed, and also horticulture production capacity with Dutch farmhouse having good business ability is the world's best.

Notwithstanding the Dutch success with Agropark, the same in other countries, including Korea, are needed to match the characteristics of each country, including the country’s socio-economic structure, agriculture, environment, energy status, water, etc., which process may take a long time. Therefore, it is required to introduce the concepts and features of the Agropark that may fit into the current Saemangeum development plan step by step. Agropark could be formed easily by connection of horticulture and husbandry firstly. After successful operation in first step, then Agropark could contain various function and could be expanded in second and third step as shown in Figure 3.

Stepwise construction of Agropark (Figure 3) like an example of Kalundborg (Kalundborg symbios, 2016)

(Figure 4) is needed. In Saemangeum agricultural land, it is desirable to combine animal husbandry and horticulture initially, and it is possible. After introducing the livestock of resources circulation and recycling system that can process biomass wherein the validity and effectiveness is verified, it is possible to combine related facilities that provide an effect derived from those as the planning of second stage. Success of a few Agroparks that are managed well would act as a catalyst to expand the concept in real life in Saemangeum development area.

It is necessary to take into account the Saemangeum land use plan as a whole to avoid unnecessary duplication of efforts and making different activities complimentary to each other. The target of Agropark in Saemangeum should be reach to export markets of China and Japan and domestic big cities outside Saemangeum as well as international city in Saemangeum. Figure 5 shows that Saemangeum agricultural land on the basis of these concepts for Agropark is developed and expands in stages in the future. Where, if we suppose synergy effect of present master plan is zero as shown in Fig. 5(a) because each function of different complex is not connected, synergy effect of proposed plan would be positive because productivity would increase, cost of logistic would decrease, input costs of energy and law material would be low.

(2) Considering the current land use plan of

Saemangeum agricultural land: In the current land use plan

for the agricultural area in the Agropark, there is a method

to unify production, processing and distribution which are

Figure 3. Functional cooperation in agricultural land in an Agropark

inter-connected activities, and to enable the circulation of resources. However, there are technical and spatial limitations to accomplish this as the land area is too wide and distances involved are large. However, Saemanguem agricultural land is to be an Agropark also if each agricultural land is connected together to a large cluster with a focus on the comprehensive management center that connects the characteristics of each function well, manages the connection and play a central role (Jang, 2012).

In order to prevent avoidable duplication in investment, each function by use of the land must be connected with others so that open typed circulating system which matching characteristics are possible. In this way, it is necessary to divide large Saemangeum agricultural land into

two groups such as Gunsan region in northern Mangyeong River basin and Gimje region in southern Dongjin River basin.

To link each function in a group, we considered link factors which are classified to basic factor, connection factor, advancement factor. Basic factors are items which are low variability such as agricultural products.

Connection factors are technique for linking and related facilities and advancement factors are investment for facilities and regulation, etc. Therefore, we classified link factors for Agropark into Saemangeum in Table 2. From these link factors we can link and connect each function of individual land with a sort of facilities such as agricultural production, resources recycling, housing,

(a) Present master plan (b) Proposed plan

Figure 5. Improvement in Saemangeum agricultural land on introducing Agropark concept

Figure 4. Step-by-step Development in Kalundborg Denmark

support, infrastructure as shown in Table 3.

First, therefore, the agricultural land of Gimje region as shown in Figure 6 has features suitable for configurations of Agropark including the horticulture park, organic farming livestock typed circulation of resources, rural city, agricultural industrial cluster, agricultural theme parks, Botanical Gardens. Thus, it is easy for them to interact and mutually complimented. For example, if livestock join horticulture and then combine with processing, such connections by themselves would form a large Agropark in

Saemangeum. Then, in the northern region of Mangyeong

River Basin there will be composite grain complex,

horticulture complex, environmental complex and nursery field, etc. Therefore, these complexes can add facilities to the Agropark, while maintaining their original function. In this case, we are expecting synergy effect of Agropark very simply by connecting original different complexes with line. This case also can give a benefit from connection in Figure 6 than in present master plan of Figure 5(a).

Figure 6. Connection between Agropark components in the current plan

Function of land Facilities

Agricultural production Glasshouse, livestock, production facilities, etc.

Resources recycling Biogas-plant, resources recycling facilities, new renewable facilities, rainfall storage tank, etc.

Housing Housing complex, living environment facilities, etc.

Supprot Process & logistic center, R&D center, promotion center, etc.

Infrastructure Road, water way, lot, water and sewage, greens, etc.

Table 3. Actual link of each facility between function of land

Factor Items in Saemangeum agricultural land

Basic factor Agricultural products(grain, horticulture), food, seed, by-product, waste, toruism, service, support, etc.

Connection factor Technique of resources recycling, org-ware(systematization), biogas-plant, pipe-line, etc.

Advancement factor Law of reclaimed land, system, fund, attraction of private, etc.

Table 2. Link factors of Agropark in Saemangeum agricultural land

Second, there is a proposal to introduce Agropark in agro industrial cluster firstly because the cluster is already responsible for processing, distribution and function of the service mainly. Therefore, it is possible to consider to make pilot park in the cluster that may include facilities for recycling resources, research and high-value-added processing facilities in addition to production, processing and distribution facilities as shown in Figure 7.

In any case, the total comprehensive management center is required to have a role in the center and manage whole agricultural land in Saemangeum. The organization will be responsible for the function that can be managed and operated comprehensively as the central axis for functional

cooperation of Saemangeum agricultural land (Figure 8).

IV. DISCUSSION

Introducing Agropark in Saemangeum, to combine production complexes with various industrial facilities for synergy and integrate logistics and export complex into them, there is a need to change the existing plan to promote clustered activities in Saemangeum agricultural land.

First, in metropolitan agriculture, Agropark is not a stand-alone system. Hence, a huge market is required that

Figure 7. In case of Agropark in agricultural industrial cluster (for example)

Figure 8. Organization of the comprehensive management center for Saemangeum agricultural land

can handle the final product. It is also possible to consider international city of Saemangeum, and Gunsan, Gimje, Buan, Jeonju metropolitan by taking into account the demand of the global city and bigger metropolitan area as target market. After building new port in Saemangeum, export network into Japan, China and Southeast Asia nearby will bring significant benefits to market formation.

Second, as the Agropark is recycling resources within the same space, combining agriculture and non-agriculture sector is important. Therefore, biomass utilization facility, energy production and waste disposal treatment facilities must be present in the park in agricultural land. These may overlap with renewable energy park and industrial complexes, which are responsible to other ministry according to the master plan. Therefore, consultations between relevant ministries and agencies are required.

Third, it is important to conceive and implement operational organization to manage and control the network that connects chains of production, processing, distribution and the flow of energy and garbage in Saemangeum agricultural land. Assistance from relevant Professional organization may be taken in this regard.

Fourth, because Saemangeum area is not a currently producing land but envisages to become an agricultural complex on a large scale in a new polder, Saemangeum may be ideal to achieve resource recycling of Agriculture as embedded in Agropark concept. However, in achieving this, in addition to the technical issues such as irrigation, drainage, ecosystems, water quality, landscape, and animal welfare, and the like; it is also necessary to consider social and economic factors and several other related factors need to be considered for a meaningful and fruitful development of Saemangeum region through the Agropark.

The Netherlands has achieved resource recycling agriculture with practical application to develop a variety of energy-saving technology for environment-friendly sustainable agriculture in preparation for an increase in energy costs due to the rise in international oil prices and the depletion of fossil energy. They have also reaped economic benefits of reduced operating costs and production through the circulation of energy, low-carbon, environmental protection and profit to the companies, which operates related facilities.

Therefore, to get benefit of synergy effect of Agropark concept, original master plan is needed to be modified.

Otherwise, present master plan should contain a connection plan between different complexes in Saemangeum agricultural land.

V. CONCLUSIONS

The results of the study for measures to introduce Agropark into Saemangeum agricultural land are summarized below: First, when the currently developed land use plan is not considered, arrangement for the area development can be modified to make Agroparks, which are interconnected for resource circulation in specific area, and then the agricultural land will be implemented in stages with many Agropark expanding continuously. This method needs a long-term perspective. Second, when the current land use plan is considered, it is possible to connect the current plan to make functions of Agropark work between each agricultural land, and Agropark test can be installed in agro- industrial cluster in Saemanguem.

Both two methods are beneficial to get synergy effect of Agropark to combine different complexes and optional to select appropriate method in changeable situation of present master plan in the future.

Agropark, seen in the integration and complex agricultural production system is complete and powerful one to enable sustainable agricultural development and to realize the value required in the future. However, there are many problems to be solved in technical, economic, social and related fields. For the success of Agropark constructions in the future, continuous research and development for the detailed plan and design technology in line with the nation’s real situation is required.

이 논문은 2014년 22회 ICID Congress 특별세션에 서 발표되었던 내용을 재구성·수정·보완한 내용입 니다.

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 Received 7 October 2016

 First Revised 8 November 2016

 Finally Revised 17 November 2016

 Accepted 17 November 2016