ABSTRACT
South Korea is one of the major economic successes of post-war reconstruction and development. Much has been written about the successful role of the state in designing industrial policies and keeping tight control of business and finance. But the state not only tightly managed strategic industrial sectors, it was and still is deeply involved in food supply management. This is an often overlooked and perhaps less successful aspect of the South Korean developmental state. This chapter outlines how government policies for food and agriculture have changed over time, highlighting the strong role of the state, the challenges of securing food supplies, and the framing of food supply management in national (food) security terms. The findings are that food security is a concept that in effect has been used as a matter of national security concern by the state to mobilize the people, but that the particular challenges that food security policy tried to address have changed significantly.
