KOREAN NET

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs on Jan. 20 announced that it will expand its voucher program for agricultural goods for the socially disadvantaged to the entire country. Shown are shoppers buying vegetables at a hypermarket in Seoul. (Yonhap News)

By Lee Dasom

A public project that provides agricultural and food vouchers to the socially disadvantaged will be expanded this year to the entire country, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said on Jan. 20.

Since its launch in 2020, the trial project, which supports the purchase of fresh produce by the needy, has helped 250,000 disadvantaged households in 71 cities, counties and districts. The program is considered to have improved the eating habits of the beneficiaries.

The project is one of the ministry's main tasks this year to set a sustainable consumption base for the needy in buying agricultural goods and food.

Eligible for the program are welfare recipient households with pregnant women, infants, and children aged 18 or below. The subsidy for a four-member household was doubled from KRW 480,000 per year to KRW 1 million.

The vouchers can be used to buy domestically produced vegetables, fruits, meat, fresh eggs, milk, mixed grains and dubu (tofu) at designated places.

The ministry also set up an integrative platform for the vouchers, diversified the number of application channels to online and phone, and simplified the application documents to enhance user convenience.

"Rising inflation is raising the burden on the socially disadvantaged in purchasing food," it said. "So we'll expand the scope of support to allow more such people to stably secure quality food."

dlektha0319@korea.kr