Farmers work at a field in Wonju, Gangwon Province, April 1. Yonhap

The number of farming households in Korea fell below 1 million for the first time ever in 2023 and half of farmers were aged 65 and older, data showed Thursday.

The number of farming households came to 999,000 as of December 2023, down 2.3 percent from a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.

It marked the first time that the figure has gone below the 1 million mark since 1949 when the agency began compiling related data, though the data had a margin of error of about 10,000 households, the agency said.

The number of households in the farming business has been on a decrease in recent years amid rapid aging and urbanization trends across the country.

The population of farming families also went down 3.5 percent on-year to 2.09 million in 2023.

Of them, 36.7 percent, or the largest share, were in their 70s and older, followed by those in their 60s and in their 50s.

The proportion of those aged 65 and older in the farming sector reached an all-time high of 52.6 percent last year, with the comparable figure for the country's total population coming to 18.2 percent.

In the fishing field, the number of families declined 1.8 percent on-year to 42,000 and the population lost 4.1 percent to 87,000, the data showed. (Yonhap)