Gokseong County Extends 50% Discount on Agricultural Machinery Rental Fees Until Year-End

"Solving Labor Shortages for Farms...
Easing the Burden of Agricultural Management"

Gokseong County will extend the benefit of a 50% discount on agricultural machinery rental fees, which was originally scheduled to end at the end of last year, until the end of this year. Provided by Gokseong County

Gokseong County, South Jeolla Province (Governor Cho Sangrae), announced on the 6th that it will extend the 50% discount on agricultural machinery rental fees, which was originally scheduled to end at the end of last year, until the end of this year.

The rental fee reduction was first introduced in 2020 to ease the management burden on farms caused by COVID-19. Since then, due to the prolonged pandemic, difficulties in the entry of foreign workers, rising labor costs, and increasing agricultural material prices, the policy has been continuously implemented by actively reflecting the opinions of farmers to support timely farming and address labor shortages in the field.

Since 2008, Gokseong County has been operating an agricultural machinery rental program in the county and 11 towns and townships to reduce the burden of purchasing agricultural machinery and to increase the mechanization rate of farming operations. The 11 rental service centers mainly provide about 530 small agricultural machines of 260 types free of charge, while the Gokseong Agricultural Technology Center rents out about 260 medium and small machines of 85 types year-round, with daily rental fees ranging from 10,000 to 160,000 KRW depending on the purchase price of the equipment.

From 2020 to the present, the county has supported about 360 million KRW in rental fee reductions. Last year alone, 2,203 machines were rented to 1,777 farms, contributing significantly to easing the economic burden with a reduction of 76 million KRW in rental fees.

Seo Yeonnam, Director of the Gokseong Agricultural Technology Center, said, "We hope that the continued agricultural machinery rental fee reduction this year will provide at least some support for the management stability of local farms," and added, "We will continue to do our best to discover new policies for agricultural mechanization and to alleviate the management burden on farmers."