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More people now working in nation's agricultural sector

One year after entering the WTO, the nation's agricultural population hit 709,000 as of the end of last December, a growth of 3,000 compared with the level a year earlier, Council of Agriculture officials said yesterday.

Taking into account the number of natural deaths and the outflow from the sector of elderly residents, the council estimated that the number of people entering the sector could total between 23,000 and 33,000 for the whole of last year.

The officials attributed the increase to high unemployment -- more than 5 percent last year -- on the grounds that the traditional agricultural sector usually absorbs redundant workers from non-agricultural sectors at a time of recession.

Jobless workers have been moving into the agricultural sector since early last year, they said.

However, they pointed out that the agricultural population as a ratio of the total employed workforce dropped from 10.1 per cent in 1996 to 7.5 percent last year, with the average age of farm workers rising slightly from 49 to 50.

In a bid to minimize the impact of the WTO entry on the domestic agricultural industry, the council has launched manpower training programs in the countryside under which more than 4,000 farmers have received professional training on market distribution and information industry- and Internet-related skills.
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