Jeonbuk Province to Accept Applications for Farmers' Public Interest Allowance Starting Next Month 1st

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Jeonbuk Province announced on the 8th that from next month 1st to April 30th, applications and registrations for the ‘2020 Jeonbuk Agriculture and Rural Public Value Support Project (hereinafter referred to as Farmer Public Interest Allowance)’ will be simultaneously promoted at the offices of 14 cities, counties, and towns within the province.

Jeonbuk’s ‘Farmer Public Interest Allowance’ is a project implemented to recognize, maintain, and enhance the public value of agriculture for sustainable agriculture and rural areas amid difficulties such as the aging agricultural population and the decline in young farmers entering the industry, which leads to the depopulation of rural villages. It was established last year as the first metropolitan local government ordinance on ‘Jeonbuk Agriculture and Rural Public Value Support.’

Starting this year, the government’s ‘Public Interest Direct Payment System’ aims to reorganize the existing national direct payment system, which has been concentrated on the rice direct payment system, and supports farmers in terms of income stability and income compensation. This is the difference from the Farmer Public Interest Allowance.

To promote the Farmer Public Interest Allowance project, Jeonbuk Province and the cities and counties decided on the payment amount and resource sharing ratio through a business agreement in July last year, and completed all preparations by establishing the budget and implementation guidelines for this year’s project.

The eligibility for the Farmer Public Interest Allowance support is households that have had a continuous address and agricultural management entity in the province for more than two years as of the application year and cultivate more than 1,000㎡ of farmland within the province. The payment amount is 600,000 KRW per year, paid once annually.

The eligibility criteria apply to households that have had an address and agricultural management entity in Jeonbuk Province since December 31, 2017, and the payment method will be cash or local currency, depending on the conditions of each city and county.

After the application and registration process is completed from next month to April, from May to September, verification of eligibility will be conducted, including registration status of agricultural management entities, confirmation of non-agricultural income exceeding 37 million KRW, relocation outside the province, duplicate applications within one household, and separate applications by spouses. The final recipients will be confirmed and payments made in September.

A Jeonbuk Province official said, “The Farmer Public Interest Allowance, which recognizes the public value of agriculture and is a key pledge of the 7th local government administration and the aspiration of farmers, is taking its first step. We will make every effort to promote the project using various promotional media such as training for city and county town officials, distribution of leaflets, and posters.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.