Icheon City Achieves Top Ranking in Gyeonggi Province for 'Successor Farmer Selection' for Third Consecutive Year

[Suwon Ilbo=Um In-yong Reporter] Icheon City has recorded the top position in Gyeonggi Province for the third consecutive year by producing the most selected candidates for its 2025 Successor Farmer Management (hereafter "successor farmer") cultivation and support project.

The city produced a total of 260 successor farmers over three years: 86 in 2023, 114 in 2024, and 60 in 2025, marking the largest number in Gyeonggi Province.

Successor farmer cultivation is a core project to address rural depopulation, decline in agricultural population, and aging in farming communities. To further strengthen this initiative, Icheon City is operating a nation-first program that provides additional 'Young Farmer (Young Farm) Settlement Support Grants' to young successor farmers aged 18 to 45.

Particularly this year, the city provided 'Farming Settlement Support Funds' to 107 young entrepreneurial successor farmers to support stable settlement, and conducted 16 network education sessions for 155 successor farmers to strengthen the capabilities of future farmers.

Through these efforts, the city has pursued both concrete settlement foundations for young farmers and enhancement of professional expertise beyond simple selection.

Successor farmers are selected in two categories: young entrepreneurial type and general type. Those who maintain successor farmer status for five years become eligible to apply for Outstanding Successor Farmer Management status.

Successor farmers are announced and recruited annually in December and January respectively, Outstanding Successor Farmers are announced and recruited in March and April, and Icheon City's Young Farmer (Young Farm) Settlement Support Grants are announced and received in January and February.

The city plans to operate pre-education sessions for prospective successor farmer applicants in accordance with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs implementation guidelines to be established next year.

Promotion will be conducted through the Agricultural Technology Center's Farming Technology Division 'Text Dream Service,' Icheon City's website, and administrative welfare centers in eup, myeon, and dong. Applications are planned to be processed through on-site registration at the Agricultural Technology Center on the day of education.

Park Jong-in, Head of the Agricultural Promotion Division, emphasized the importance of human resource development, stating, "Cultivating successor farmers is a future measure for a vibrant agriculture," and added, "We hope many farmers and prospective farmers will show interest and participate in pre-education and the successor farmer initiative."