According to new data, one in three people in farming communities in South Korea is aged 70 or older.

Statistics Korea reported on Thursday that the number of agricultural households stood at around one million and the farming population around two-point-24 million as of December 1, 2019.

Compared to the same period in 2018, the number of agricultural households slipped by 14-thousand and the farming population by 70-thousand after many farmers gave up the industry due to old age or to take on a new vocation.  

In particular, the statistics agency found that a record 33-and-a-half percent of the farming population were elderly, aged 70 or older, up eight-thousand from the previous year.  

Overall, people aged 60 years or over accounted for nearly 61 percent of the total farming population, indicating that rapid aging is being witnessed among those in farming communities.

The agency found that the number of farmers in their 60s, 70s or older grew while farmers in their 50s declined. 

As a result, the percentage of people aged 65 and above in the agricultural community grew one-point-nine percentage points to 46-point-six percent. That’s around three times larger than the percentage of elderly in the nation’s total population.