Muan-gun Provides Customized Support from Preparing for Returning to Farming to Settlement in Stages

Expectations for Improved Workforce Structure and Revitalization of Rural Areas through Urban Residents' Influx

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Oh Hwan-joo] Muan-gun, Jeollanam-do (Governor Kim San) announced on the 17th that, following the high interest in returning to farming and rural living, it established a Return-to-Farming and Rural Living Team through an organizational restructuring in 2018 and has been doing its best to provide specialized counseling and promote support policies for returnees to farming and rural areas.

This year, Muan-gun secured a national and provincial budget of 200 million KRW for the Urban-to-Rural Resident Attraction Support Project and promoted various support projects at each stage from the period when urban residents prepare to return to farming until they settle down.

The counseling function was greatly strengthened by deploying return-to-farming and rural living counselors and participating in return-to-farming and rural living fairs. They are providing broad support ranging from practical training such as operating a mentoring system for returnees and establishing and operating a farming experience training center for returnees, to forming infrastructure for returnees through support for activating community groups.

Next year, they plan to further expand the project by securing an additional 110 million KRW, bringing the total scale of the return-to-farming and rural living attraction support project to 310 million KRW.

In addition, to provide understanding and adaptation to rural life and practical training and education in agricultural start-up processes by staying in Muan-gun for a certain period, they have secured a total of 1.03 billion KRW including national and provincial funds and are currently developing a residential complex for stay-type returnees to farming, aiming for completion this year. After completing preliminary procedures, the county plans to accept applications from trainees for residence starting early next year.

Furthermore, the Return-to-Farming and Rural Living Support Center, currently located within the Agricultural Technology Center, will be relocated to the residential complex for stay-type returnees to farming to improve the efficiency of resolving trainees’ difficulties and inquiries and counseling for prospective returnees.

The county supports not only education and temporary residence for returnees but also agricultural start-up funds. Through the returnee agricultural start-up and housing purchase support project, funds for establishing a farming base such as land purchase, sale and construction of agricultural facilities, and housing preparation are provided as low-interest loans at 2% interest up to a maximum of 375 million KRW per household.

Through fair evaluations including review of business plans by judges and face-to-face assessments, a total of 33 farms were selected in the first and second halves of this year, receiving over 6.6 billion KRW allocated by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, which is the second largest scale among the 22 cities and counties in Jeollanam-do.

In particular, to help the stable initial settlement of returnees within the county, the county secured about 200 million KRW from its own budget this year and supported 13 households with costs for farming machinery and facility greenhouse installation as part of the returnee settlement support project, and supported 7 households with housing remodeling and repair costs through the returnee farm housing repair support project.

A county official said, “We are well aware that preparing to return to farming is not easy due to the prolonged social distancing,” and added, “The county will do its best to assist returnees, and we hope that the situation will improve next year so that more people can settle in Muan.”

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