Farming emerging as new job of choice in Korea

Children visiting Korea’s cheese town of Imsil, North Jeolla Province, stretch out a sheet of cheese during a do-it-yourself program. The city’s cheese industry is fostered by residents, who moved from big cities. Courtesy of MIFAFF.

This is the first of a three-part series highlighting the recent trend that many Koreans become farmers or ranchers. The series is supported by the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. ED.

By Kim Tae-gyu
The Korean Times
02-20-2012

Excerpt:

As far as where to reside is concerned, the effect of Korea’s fast industrialization might boil down to one basic statement of “city life good, rural life bad,’’ to adapt the Orwellian expression “four legs good, two legs bad.’’

That might have been the case in the last century but a new trend is emerging in this one. A growing number of city dwellers are giving up their jobs in bursting city centers to head for farms across the country.

The Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MIFAFF) said Monday that an all time-high of around 6,500 households moved from cities to rural areas last year.

The figure was merely 880 households in 2001 but has been on a constant rise to 1,240 in 2005 and 4,067 in 2010 before topping the 6,000 mark last year for the first time in history.

“The general belief is that only retirees in their 60s or 70s return to farms because they cannot find work in cities any more or they want to live their last days in their hometowns,’’ MIFAFF Director Kim Jong-gu said.

“That might have been true in the 1990s. In recent years, however, a vast majority of them are 30- or 40-somethings and the trend is expected to accelerate in the future.’’

Read the complete article here.