As the Agricultural Machinery Industry Accelerates Its “Smart” Transformation… Frontline Sites Appeal Over Shortage of Skilled Personnel

[Korea Agricultural Technology Newspaper = Reporter Lee Hyun-woo] Concerns have been raised that while the agricultural machinery industry is rapidly becoming smarter, with autonomous tractors and agricultural robots, the skilled personnel needed to operate and manage them in the field are in a state of severe depletion. In particular, there is criticism that the disruption of technical continuity caused by aging and a rigid hiring structure are blocking the inflow of young people, making it urgent to prepare national-level workforce development measures.

On the 14th, the second day of the “2026 Spring Academic Conference,” the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery held a special session at Sono Belle Hamdeok in Jeju under the theme of “Training Skilled Personnel for the Dissemination of Agricultural Machinery Field Technologies.”

▲“When people change, the technology disappears too”…cries from the field=Yoo Jeong-young, head of the Agricultural Machinery Specialist Extension Research Association at the Rural Development Administration (and team leader at the Hongcheon County Agricultural Technology Center), who gave the first presentation, pointed out in detail the limitations of workforce operations in the field.

Chair Yoo said, “More than half of agricultural machinery personnel nationwide are organized as public-service workers or temporary employees, so there are limits to carrying out responsible practical work,” adding, “Unless we resolve the structural problem of being confined to simple technical maintenance tasks, proper field failure analysis and technical consulting cannot be carried out.”

A major issue highlighted was that although the technological paradigm is rapidly shifting from mechanical equipment to electronic control and autonomous driving, the response capabilities of personnel remain stuck at past levels. Chair Yoo expressed concern, saying, “The equipment is becoming smarter, but workforce capabilities remain at past levels, so dependence on manufacturers is only increasing.”

There was also strong criticism of the chronic personnel structure problem of “rotational assignments.” Chair Yoo emphasized, “Because people are moved every one year and six months to two years, expertise by equipment type is cut off and local field know-how is lost,” adding, “To break the structure in which when people change, the technology disappears as well, it is essential to expand specialized job series and minimize rotational assignments.”

▲Even when excellent talent is trained, it flows into other industries due to the ‘military service and experience’ barrier=It was also found that the “job mismatch” phenomenon, in which skilled personnel are trained in schools but are not actually connected to jobs, is serious. Hwang Min-ho, a teacher at Wonju Yeongseo High School, explained, “As of 2026, there are only 792 students nationwide in high school departments related to agricultural machinery, and department restructuring and closures due to failure to recruit new students are continuing.”

According to data disclosed by teacher Hwang, students build expertise step by step, obtaining certifications such as forklift and excavator technician licenses from their first year and even challenging for the Industrial Engineer certification in agricultural machinery by their third year. In fact, one student boasted a high level of competence, holding as many as seven technician certifications, but the barriers of reality were high.

This is because in public-sector hiring, both fixed-term positions and public-service jobs require “at least one year of experience,” or in career-competitive recruitment for Grade 9 civil servants, impose the condition of “industrial engineer certification + completion of military service,” fundamentally blocking entry for high school graduates. Teacher Hwang pointed out, “Even looking at the scale of agricultural machinery job-series recruitment in 2026, aside from Gangwon Province (25 people) and North Gyeongsang Province (2 people), it is virtually nonexistent nationwide, and the annual open recruitment scale is fewer than five people.” He proposed expanding recruitment of technical high school graduates and creating a new agricultural machinery job series to prevent outstanding young talent from flowing into other industries.

In particular, the qualitative limitations of educational infrastructure were also pointed out. The survey found that only 1.9% (three institutions) had all six types of essential facilities for agricultural machinery education, and that 35.3% of training tractors and 50.6% of combines were aging equipment manufactured before 2012.

▲“Pan-governmental cooperation and a practical action plan are needed”=Participants that day called for the preparation of practical alternatives.

Nam Young-jo, CEO of Bulls Co., Ltd., said, “This is a crisis situation, with service quality deteriorating due to manpower shortages and rental business offices being reduced depending on the will of local governments,” adding, “Barriers between ministries such as the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, and the Ministry of Education must be broken down and cooperation is needed.”

Lee Young-hwan, chairman of the National Agricultural Machinery Council, said, “In a structure where a non-expert serves as team leader, it is difficult to carry out work efficiently,” emphasizing the need to establish an expert-centered personnel system, while also saying, “Due to aging in the field, realistic safety measures are needed, such as discouraging the use of agricultural machinery by those aged 70 and older or expanding outsourced farm work services.”

There was also a proposal that solving the manpower problem should be approached from two aspects: training new personnel and preventing the departure of existing personnel. Kim Byung-gap, head of the Field Crop Machinery Division at the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, presented a two-track strategy for resolving the manpower issue.

Director Kim diagnosed, “For new inflows, the most important thing ultimately is appropriate treatment (pay) and easing labor intensity,” and said, “To reduce the workload concentrated during the busy farming season and the stress from civil complaints, we need to make pre-repair inspections routine during the off-season and establish a preventive maintenance system in step with the smartization of machinery, thereby creating incentives for workforce inflow.” He also added, “It is necessary to review measures such as a visa system that would allow foreign workers who have completed domestic training courses to be utilized as maintenance personnel to fill labor shortages, and when they return to their home countries, enable them to serve as a bridgehead for exports of our agricultural machinery.”

Jung Sun-ok, president of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery, said, “In the end, the key to delivering new technologies to farmers in the field and managing equipment is people,” and promised, “At the society level, we will do our utmost to establish a practical action plan and persuade the government so that education, qualifications, and hiring can be linked.”