Female Farmers Can Register as Co-Managers Even with Side Jobs

Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs to Improve Co-Manager System

Starting next year, female farmers will be able to register as co-managers even if they are employed elsewhere. This measure takes into account the reality of rural areas, where women often need to take on temporary jobs during the off-season to support their livelihoods.

On the 25th, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs announced that it will improve the system to allow employment for female co-managers.

The co-manager system was introduced in 2016 to recognize female farmers, who are the spouses of farm owners, as management entities and to guarantee their institutional status. Those registered as co-managers become eligible for a variety of policy supports, including farmer allowances, welfare vouchers, support for rural women’s entrepreneurship, rural national pension and health insurance, and maternity benefits for those not enrolled in employment insurance.

However, while farm owners maintain their farmer status even if they have a side job, their spouses lose their farmer status if they become workplace subscribers under the National Pension Act or workplace subscribers under the National Health Insurance Act, even temporarily. According to the Ministry’s regulations on issuing farmer certificates, their farm management registration is canceled, and they are no longer recognized as farmers. As a result, there have been limitations in guaranteeing the actual rights of female farmers.

The main point of this system improvement is that even if a female farmer who is the spouse of a farm owner takes on temporary employment, she can retain her co-manager status as long as her earned income from side jobs (during the year prior to the application for the farmer certificate, including the month immediately before) is less than 20 million won, and she has worked in agriculture for at least 90 days a year. The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs plans to revise the relevant regulation, and expects the new system to be implemented in the field starting in March next year.

Park Sungwoo, Director General of Rural Policy at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, said, "We expect this system improvement to expand economic activity and enhance the socio-economic status of female farmers," adding, "We will continue to identify and address the various difficulties that female farmers face in the field."

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