Resident-Led Daily Life and Welfare Services to Expand in Rural Areas... 300 Communities to Be Fostered by 2028

Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Announces First “Rural Community-Based Economic and Social Services Activation Plan” (2026?2028)

The government has decided to take full-scale action to improve living conditions in rural areas, where it has become increasingly difficult to access welfare services due to aging and population decline. The plan is to foster resident-led communities to provide the daily life and welfare services that residents need, and to significantly expand outreach services such as home-visit buses and mobile markets.

On December 30, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs established and announced the first “Rural Community-Based Economic and Social Services Activation Plan,” which will be implemented from 2026 to 2028. This plan was prepared in accordance with the “Act on the Promotion of Community-Based Economic and Social Services in Rural Areas,” which was enacted in August of last year.

An official from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs stated, “In rural areas, the demand for care is increasing due to the deepening of aging, but the absolute decrease in the resident population, that is, depopulation, has led to not only a lack of welfare and medical infrastructure, which has long been an issue, but also, more recently, to difficulties in providing even basic daily services. The shortage of daily life services in rural areas cannot be addressed solely through market functions and public policy, so it has become increasingly necessary to guarantee the basic daily lives of rural residents through resident-led service provision. This is why we have prepared this activation plan.”

First, the Ministry will foster the number of resident-led communities, which currently stands at 173, to 300 by 2028 as the main providers of daily life services in rural areas. The number of service communities that provide services such as home repairs, meal delivery, and laundry to residents will be increased from 40 in 2025 to 120 in 2028. The number of social farms, which provide education and healing functions through social agriculture for vulnerable groups, will be increased from 133 in 2025 to 180 in 2028. Currently, each service community receives an average of 66 million won, and each social farm receives up to 55 million won in support. The Ministry plans to gradually expand the scale of support to ensure the continued activities of service communities.

The Ministry will also prepare a step-by-step educational curriculum tailored to the growth stages of communities-entry (preliminary community), growth, and maturity-to resolve difficulties that arise during community activities. In addition, it will introduce village-dispatch consulting through outstanding communities, enabling experts and leading communities to directly visit and support new communities on site. To strengthen the foundation for community self-reliance, the Ministry will register them as eligible locations for the basic income program for rural and fishing villages and for the local love gift certificate program, and will link them to community service vouchers (Community Service Investment Project) and the Hometown Love Donation Program.

The Ministry will increase the utilization of key facilities such as living social overhead capital (SOC) and expand resident demand-based service provision through outreach services. The number of living SOC facilities in rural areas will be increased to 1,350 by 2028, and their utilization will be enhanced by considering connections with surrounding villages and operational activation from the planning stage. Furthermore, after the facilities are established, institutional conditions will be created so that community-led social solidarity economy organizations can take charge of management. In addition, the number of regions visited by home-visit buses to address gaps in rural medical care will be expanded from 465 towns and townships this year to 800 by 2028, and the number of rural mobile markets to address food desert issues will increase from 9 this year to 30 by 2028.

The system will also be improved to expand resident community participation in various areas. The scope of subsidies for the care community support project will be expanded to include vehicle rental fees to promote the activation of mobility (transportation) support services. Next year, a gap-care program will be introduced to address early morning and nighttime childcare gaps during the busy farming season. In addition, legal amendments will be pursued to allow social solidarity economy organizations to participate in rural regeneration projects, such as using vacant homes as guesthouses and vacant house maintenance projects.

Park Sungwoo, Director General of Rural Policy at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, stated, “We will use this first rural economic and social services activation plan as a starting point for building a resident-led service delivery system, and will gradually supplement related systems by reflecting improvements and feedback from the field.”