Korea Farmer and Local Cooperative Qualification Checker

Farmer status depends on the purpose of your application

This calculator is based on Korean rules for 2026, checked on 2026-10-28.
It compares a farmer certificate, the farmer definition under the Farmland Act and the farmer criteria for a local agricultural cooperative.
These systems use different legal provisions and evidence procedures.
Meeting the annual-sales criterion for a certificate does not establish eligibility for local cooperative membership through the same sales amount.

Use it before applying after moving to a rural area, starting a small farm after retirement or helping a parent prepare documents.
It identifies numerical gaps and paths where evidence remains unconfirmed.
Before buying land, expanding facilities or increasing livestock, ask the relevant authority whether that particular path can be recognized in your circumstances.
The relative-gap ranking is not an investment recommendation or an estimate of the cheapest route to status.

Three systems and their principal thresholds

The Framework Act decree lists 1,000 m² of farmland, KRW 1,200,000 annual agricultural sales, 90 agricultural work days and continuous employment for at least one year in specified agricultural corporations.
The delegated notice supplies the certificate verification methods.
Check both the underlying facts and the documents needed to establish them.

Parcel areas and acquisition evidence

Enter land you actually manage or cultivate, distinguishing ownership, a lease, a loan for use and designated proxy cultivation.
Small parcels can be combined, but count every parcel once.
Facilities and vegetable, fruit or flower areas are included within total farmland rather than added to it again.
Land ownership without actual management or cultivation is insufficient for the actual-activity confirmation.

The calculator distinguishes the confirmed certificate subtotal from parcels with unresolved evidence.
If confirmed parcels already total 1,000 m², another unknown parcel does not prevent that path from passing.
Unknown area is not converted into zero to conclude that a person fails.
The certificate notice’s acquisition-document exclusion is not automatically copied to the Farmland Act or the cooperative’s entire calculation.

330 m² facilities, 660 m² crops and annual sales

For a certificate, the sales route also requires a buyer covered by the notice and a written contract, shipment evidence or receipts.
The buyer list includes specified wholesale-market participants, livestock businesses and market buyers, producer organizations, large-store operators and registered businesses.
A statement that you sold produce directly to private consumers does not automatically establish the required buyer and evidence conditions.
Even with the same sales total, the named counterparty and the period documented can affect verification.

Compare livestock counts under the correct legal table

Evaluate one species at a time; suckling piglets are excluded from the pig count.
Do not add unlike species or invent a conversion ratio.
For the certificate livestock-count route, the count must be accompanied by qualifying ancillary facilities on at least 330 m² of farmland, or the Annex 3 housing alternative.
That alternative requires more than 25 m² for rabbits and more than 50 m² for the other supported species.
Exactly 25 m² or 50 m² fails the respective strict boundary.
A Livestock Act Article 22 breeding, hatching or rearing business permit/registration is an independent certificate route.

The cooperative also has a silkworm path at 0.5 standard boxes or more.
A standard box represents 20,000 eggs, so do not enter arbitrary retail-package counts.
For forestry, insects, protected Jindo dogs, badgers or other unmodeled species, select separate review and ask which annex or additional notice applies.

90 work days, family workers and agricultural corporations

The Farmland Act’s 90 agricultural days or 120 livestock-work days are assessed separately, without automatically importing the certificate’s family-document conditions.
For cooperative membership, Notice 2023-7 Annex 1 calls for the appropriate family/residence and principal-farmer evidence, insurance or farming-registration records, or employment-contract evidence.
Confirm that separate documentary path with the cooperative.

How to enter inputs and interpret results

1. Confirm actual farming activity and registration status, then add parcels and their documentary conditions.
2. Enter facility, crop and sales figures. Use zero for an absent activity; leave an unknown number blank.
   
3. Expand livestock or worker inputs when relevant and check their additional requirements.
4. Confirm cooperative district and other-membership facts, then compare the three summaries and detailed paths.
5. Save the checklist and compare each entry with the actual documents, names, areas and periods before consultation.

Fictional example: 600 m² leased land, sales and five pigs

The example uses actual activity and a documented 600 m² lease, 600 m² of qualifying vegetable land, KRW 1,200,000 annual sales to a qualifying buyer with evidence, five pigs, 50 m² of housing and 60 work days.
It assumes the applicant is within the relevant cooperative district and has no other local agricultural cooperative membership.
It does not rely on a livestock business permit or a separate family-worker path.

As a separate boundary example, 999 m² leaves a 1 m² numerical gap.
If 1,000 m² of owned land was acquired after the 1996 boundary without the required acquisition certificate or an applicable exception, that area can be excluded from the certificate subtotal.
The calculator does not automatically set all Farmland Act and cooperative area to zero on the same basis.
Always identify the application purpose and its evidence rules.

District, duplicate membership and temporary loss

Agricultural Cooperatives Act Article 19 generally requires an address, residence or business within the local cooperative district and prohibits joining two or more local agricultural cooperatives.
Passing a livestock threshold alone does not satisfy those additional conditions.
An existing member affected by a change to the cooperative’s district boundary may have an Article 19(5) exception, subject to its specific conditions.

Frequently asked questions