The Democratic Party of Korea is preparing to broaden the institutions eligible to buy and lease farmland as officials anticipate a surge in land sales after a government-wide survey. Rep. Song Ok-ju, a Democratic Party member of the National Assembly's Agriculture, Food, Rural Affairs, Oceans and Fisheries Committee, plans to introduce an amendment to the Farmland Act in the near future, political sources said on the 29th. The bill would allow the agriculture minister or provincial governors to designate local-government-funded nonprofit corporations, cultural foundations, scholarship funds, promotion centers and consumer cooperatives as farmland holding rationalization corporations. These bodies could buy, hold and lease farmland, with central and local governments permitted to subsidize part of the interest on purchase loans. The proposal reflects concern that the state Farmland Bank cannot absorb the potential supply on its own. Nationwide, the average actual farmland transaction price fell 34.3% to 53,518 won per square meter last year from 81,434 won in 2021, then declined to 50,085 won from January through July this year. Transactions fell 49.6% to 149,230 parcels last year, with 89,768 parcels changing hands in the first seven months of this year. A July basic survey by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs identified 2.84 million parcels, covering about 300,000 hectares, as suspected farmland-rule violations. At the January-to-July average price, buying that area would cost more than 150 trillion won, roughly 93 times the Farmland Bank's 1.617 trillion-won purchase budget for this year, although the bank is not required to buy all of it. Eligible corporations would act as intermediaries for sellers and new farmers, prioritizing young farmers and people returning to rural areas. They would need annual approval for acquisition, leasing, youth-farmer support and financial-management plans, and could lose their designation for non-public-interest use. Nonghyup is also being considered, while the government is separately trying to distinguish speculative violations from customary rural practices and reviewing special legislation and a larger farmland-purchase budget.