Background of Research
This study aims at developing political tasks to identify the current status of women farmers and develop their management capability in the agricultural sector and the local communities, by closely examining the current conditions of economic and social activities in the agricultural sector and the local communities in which they participate.
These days, the women farmers’ participation in the agricultural sector has increased, as main producers, managers, and non-farming income earners, agricultural products salespeople, and farming CEOs. The fact that the hours of labor by women farmers and the degree of their participation in agricultural management have increased signifies that the women farmers’ role as management personnel as well as labor force has increased.

Method of Research
A questionnaire survey and a "village survey" were conducted to examine the actual state of economic and social activities of women farmers. The target audience of the questionnaire survey were women farmers who reside in rural areas (Eup/Myeon) and who are aged 19 years or more and less than 65 years. This is because the purpose of this research lies on fostering women farmers as business managers. A total of 702 women farmers were sampled and the sampling has a reliability of 95% with a maximum sampling error of ± 3.70%. The survey, which was entrusted to Research & Research, Inc., was conducted through face-to-face interviewing with a structured questionnaire. The sampling was allocated to different regions (Gyeonggi/Gangwon, Chungcheong, Jeolla, Gyeongsang) for a target audience of 175 women farmers per region, and it was conducted in consideration of rural village types (suburban, plains, mountainous), cultivated items, farming scale, and life cycle. The survey period was from July 20, 2012 to August 8, 2012. In the case of the village survey, the survey was conducted directly by the researchers using the same questionnaire as the one used in the nationwide survey. Since it is difficult to find a common ground for each village as cultivated items and farming scale vary among farm households, three villages were selected based on the assumption that agricultural off-season is an objective indicator.

Research Results and Implications
When the entire farming process from production to sales is assumed as 100%, the women farmers, except those in their 20s and 30s, take care of 50% or more of it. It shows that the larger the farming scale and the higher the facility farming rate, the more the women farmers participate in farming.
Change in the women farmers’ roles is related to the socio-economic structure. Through the industrialization process, the society in general has deepened the tendency of pursuing the individualism and equality. In agriculture in particular, this family relationship has been converted to a collaborative relationship in which each member’s role in farming is decided depending on his or her specialty and talent and the family perform their roles in collaboration with each other. As agriculture expands its scope from the primary industry into the secondary and the tertiary industries, the women farmers have emerged as the principal party of the secondary and the tertiary industries instead of remaining as the assisting party of the primary industry. As the feminine qualities such as care and consideration for others are the basic elements that ensure competitiveness of the secondary and the tertiary industries which are the processing and the service industries, the women farmers have more opportunities to exert their qualities are CEO. To provide such opportunities to the women farmers is the focus of future training for the women farmers.

Researchers: Eun-Mee Jeong, Sang-Jin Ma, Ja-Hye Min
Research period: 2012. 1. - 2012. 10.
E-mail address: jeongem@krei.re.kr