Lost Harvest: 8 in 10 Rural Seniors Left in the Dark About Farmland Pension Benefits

‘Farmland pension’ and ‘farmer allowance’ have been introduced to compensate for low agricultural income, but there are concerns that they are not enough to serve as a buffer for farmers due to low awareness and worsening financial conditions of local governments. Experts suggest strengthening field-centered publicity and clarifying the financial basis for promoting the system.

The farmland pension is a system in which elderly farmers aged 60 or older receive a monthly pension using the farmland they own as collateral. It is largely divided into ▲lifetime fixed-rate type ▲post-war type ▲annual withdrawal type ▲term fixed-rate type ▲management transfer type.

Lee Hyang-mi, a senior researcher at the Rural Research Institute of the Korea Rural Community Corporation, said, “Farmland pensions appear to be contributing to the stability of elderly farmers’ lives in retirement,” and analyzed, “In particular, the smaller the size of farmland assets, the greater the proportion of living expenses covered through pensions.” Based on the cost of living for a two-person household with a business owner aged 65 or older, 63.2% was covered by pension when farmland assets were 72 million won, and 72.0% was covered by pension when assets were 45.37 million won.

However, it appears that there are quite a few farmers who are unable to sign up for the farmland pension because they ‘don’t know’ it. According to the ‘2023 Survey on the Status of the Elderly’ published by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, only 17.4% of the 2,596 elderly people aged 65 or older living in rural areas (eup/myeonbu) responded that they were familiar with the farmland pension. Even compared to the housing pension (21.3%), the response rate was low.

In addition, the elderly living in rural areas (eup/myeon) were found to have lower awareness of the welfare system than the elderly living in cities (dongs). Among the health and welfare services related to the elderly, awareness of all 10 services except farmland pension was lower in rural areas than in cities. The early dementia screening project showed a difference of 8.7% points, and the customized elderly care service showed a difference of 4.7% points.

Park Dae-sik, director of the Korea Rural Welfare Institute, said, “Even when welfare policies are introduced, the problem of farmers not being aware of them and not being able to use them is recurring,” adding, “We are actively promoting face-to-face publicity by utilizing organizations within rural areas, such as village leaders such as village heads, and farmer and resident groups. “It has to be done,” he said.

During the audit of the National Assembly’s Agriculture, Food, Rural Affairs, Oceans and Fisheries Committee held on October 22 for the Korea Rural Community Corporation and others, the issue of not paying about 20 billion won in farmland pensions with regular withdrawals last year due to budget shortages came up on the chopping block.

As population concentration in the metropolitan area accelerates, concerns continue to arise over the continuation of farmer allowances. Farmer allowances were expanded to basic local governments, starting with Haenam-gun, Jeollanam-do in 2018. It is paid through a combination of provincial and city/county expenses.

However, it is pointed out that the current farmer allowance is contributing to the expansion of inequality between local governments. According to the ‘Evaluation of Cash Welfare Systems for Special Occupations in Local Governments’ published by the Korea Institute of Public Finance, the amount of farmer allowances paid ranges from 300,000 to 700,000 won per year, with wide differences between local governments. The target of support is also different, including individuals and households. Park No-wook, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute of Public Finance, said, “There is a possibility that inequality will worsen due to the gap in financial power between local governments.” He added, “Local governments with less finances will have lower levels of farmer allowance payments, and their financial capacity to pursue other projects will be reduced.” “There is a risk,” he said.

Accordingly, a bill was proposed in the National Assembly to subsidize part of the financial resources from the national treasury. Moon Dae-rim, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea (Jeju Gap), proposed the ‘Farmers and Fishermen Allowance Support Bill’, which requires the government to cover more than 40% of the cost of farmers’ allowances and increases the payment level to more than half of the minimum cost of living.

Meanwhile, there are arguments for integrating farmer allowances with the public interest direct payment system and increasing the effectiveness of support. An agricultural industry official said, “The basis for payment of farmer allowances and the public interest direct payment system is similar in that it creates public interest.” He added, “As the public interest direct payment system is more systematically inspected for public interest implementation than the farmer allowance system, it is necessary to integrate the two systems and increase the level of guarantee.” “We need to review the plan,” he said.

Reporter Kim So-jin