College opens way to high-income farmers

Graduates of Korea National College of Agriculture and Fisheries earned 65.15 million won on average last year, twice as much as other farmers and even higher than the average pay at top 100 conglomerates, the university said Thursday.

The government-funded university said almost one in five earned 100 million won in the past year and 71.3 percent of the total took home more than 30 million won.

“What differentiates our graduates from other farmers is that every student in their second year of college get to spend a year or so in a farm or a research center abroad to pick up world-class knowhow in agricultural production,” a spokesperson at the university said.

“Almost all graduates leave school prepared to start their farming and their extensive exposure to past cases lead them to less business failure.”

The 65.15 million won ($57,750) of average income from last year is a 12.5 percent decline from 74.47 million won of 2009 figure, but still is more than double of 32.12 million won, the average income of farmers in the country, the college said. It is 1.4 times higher than take home pay of average urban workers.

Graduates who majored in livestock farming earned the highest on average, 95.9 million won, followed by those in vegetable crops, 62.05 million won, and food science, 56.79 million won. Graduates of floriculture earned 53.26 million won and those from fruit science and specialty crops earned 52.07 million won and 46.56 million won on average respectively.

Established in 1997, the KNCAF is entirely funded by the government to foster farm managers with expertise in the production they explore. All graduates are required to work at the industry they majored in for at least six years upon graduation, with maximum leave up to three years. The college produced a total of 2,558 graduates since 2007 and 2,089 of them are now professional farmer or managers in the industry.

By Cynthia J. Kim (cynthiak@heraldcorp.com)