EPS-TOPIK Sectors: What Does 'Agriculture and Livestock' Actually Mean?

Introduction

When you write "agriculture and livestock" on your application, which place do you picture?

Many people picture wide fields, a blue sky, and fruit hanging from a tree. The work you actually do in Korea can be quite far from that. In summer, the inside of a vinyl greenhouse is much hotter than the air outside. In an animal barn, you feed the animals at the same hour even on a holiday.

This article shows you that place in advance. First, what an agriculture and livestock business actually does. Next, a self-check on what kind of work feels comfortable to you. Then the kinds of farms there are, and how the rules differ from manufacturing. Finally, the words you will actually hear on a farm.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Always verify visa and immigration procedures with HRD Korea's official website or the relevant authority.

Part 1 · What does an agriculture and livestock business do?

Agriculture and livestock means growing plants and raising animals. You sow seeds, grow vegetables and fruit and sell them, and you feed and raise cattle, pigs, and chickens.

Korea's Employment Permit System (EPS) lists three business types under agriculture and livestock: crop farming, livestock farming, and support services for crop and livestock farming.¹ The first two are exactly what their names say. The third means a company that does farm work on behalf of a farm. It takes on jobs like sowing seeds, spraying chemicals, or sorting and packing what has been harvested.

For 2026, the government set the agriculture and livestock quota at 10,000 workers. Out of the 70,000 assigned by sector, that is the second largest number after manufacturing.²

Part 2 · What kind of work suits you?

You do not choose which farm you go to, or what work you do there. That does not mean there is nothing to do right now.

There is one thing worth knowing in advance: what kind of work feels comfortable to you. Knowing this tells you what to prepare now, and it makes settling in easier once you arrive.

Farm work has a few clear features. Answer the questions below one by one for yourself.

There is no correct answer. No answer here is better or worse than another.

But if one row made you think "that one would be hard for me," that is where your preparation starts. If the heat worries you, start now with the habit of drinking water often. If the low posture worries you, learning some back and knee stretches in advance will help.

Part 3 · Kinds of farms and the daily work

Now let us put names to those five questions you just answered.

Before that, there is something worth looking at. Korea has already published what farm work involves, in the form of exam tasks. In rounds run under the point system, candidates who pass the EPS-TOPIK take a second-stage skills test. Applicants for agriculture and livestock get six basic skill tasks.³

• 예초기 사용 (yechogi sayong / using a brush cutter): handling the machine that cuts grass
• 작물 파종 (jangmul pajong / sowing crops): scattering seeds and planting them
• 울타리망 설치 (ultarimang seolchi / installing mesh fencing): putting up a mesh fence so animals cannot get in
• 상품 포장 (sangpum pojang / packing produce): putting harvested produce into boxes or bags
• 계량 및 배합 (gyeryang mit baehap / weighing and mixing): weighing things and mixing them in the set amounts
• 일륜차 운전 (illyuncha unjeon / pushing a one-wheeled cart): pushing a wheelbarrow with a single wheel

Line up just these six and you already have most of a day on a farm. You cut the grass, plant the seeds, put up the fence, harvest and pack, weigh things, and move them by cart. The task list can change from round to round, so prepare from the notice for your round and the official study materials.

The same page also lists the job competency points. Related experience of one year or more is worth 2 points, related training of 120 hours or more is worth 1 point, a related major at junior college level or above is worth 1 point, and one or more related certificates is worth 1 point, for a maximum of 5. The page also states that extra points go to people who worked in Korea for five months or more on a seasonal worker (E-8) status. Which rounds this applies to, and how you prove it, must be checked in the recruitment notice.³

Now the kinds of farms. What is being grown changes the day completely.

Greenhouse vegetable farms have work in winter too. Inside is warm, but in summer it gets very hot. You open and close the doors many times in one day.

Open fields and rice paddies use the word 노지 (noji), meaning open ground with no greenhouse cover. So the weather hits the work directly. Rain changes the order of the day, and good weather adds work that has to be finished the same day.

Orchards involve a lot of ladder work. You spend long stretches with your arms raised above your head. The work changes with the season: tending the blossoms in spring, bagging the fruit in summer, harvesting in autumn.

Mushroom growing happens in a room where temperature and humidity are controlled. The weather matters less, but you repeat the same movement for a long time in a cool room.

Livestock is the hardest place to fix a day off, because animals have to eat every day. Getting used to the smell and the noise takes time.

Part 4 · What is different from manufacturing?

You sit the same exam and enter on the same visa, but some rules change with the sector.

Let us take the rows one at a time.

Start with the score. Both numbers are on a 100-point scale. But neither number is a pass mark. HRD Korea states that the exam is graded on a curve, and describes how successful candidates are decided: "Candidates who score at or above the sector minimum are ranked by score, and successful candidates are decided up to the planned selection quota" (업종별 최저 하한 점수 이상 득점자로서, 선발(예정)인원 만큼 성적순으로 합격자 결정).⁴ The 45 is the line that lets you join the ranked queue. Whether you pass depends on whether your score lands inside the number of people being selected for that sector in that round.

The biggest difference is the rules about working hours. Article 63 of the Labor Standards Act sets out the cases where the rules on working hours, breaks, and holidays do not apply. The first item is businesses that till the land and plant and grow plants, and the second is businesses that raise animals.⁵ So the 40-hour weekly cap, the 12-hour weekly limit on overtime, and one day of rest per week are not enforced by law. In busy seasons, that means the hours can get long.

Here is the part to get right. What is excluded is the rules on working hours, breaks, and holidays. The whole Labor Standards Act is not excluded. And the minimum wage still applies. The 2026 minimum wage is 10,320 won per hour. Calculated on 209 hours per month at a 40-hour week, that comes to 2,156,880 won. The Ministry of Employment and Labor stated that this amount applies to every workplace with no distinction by sector.⁶

One more thing to check. The Labor Standards Act applies to workplaces with five or more regular workers, and for workplaces with four or fewer, only some of its provisions apply, as set by Presidential Decree.⁵ In other words, how many people work at your farm can change which provisions cover you.

Housing rules are the same regardless of sector. They are worth knowing anyway, because they come up more often on farms. Since January 1, 2021, the Ministry of Employment and Labor has refused new employment permits where the housing provided is a container, a prefabricated panel structure, or a container placed inside a vinyl greenhouse. The only exception is where the local government has issued a construction report certificate for use as "temporary housing."⁷

What happens if you end up living in a place like that? A Ministry of Employment and Labor notice lists it as a "reason for workplace change that is not the fault of the foreign worker" when the employer provides a vinyl greenhouse or an unlawful temporary structure as housing. Failing to pay 30% or more of the monthly wage for more than two months is on the same list.⁸ Workplace changes are normally capped at three times during the first three years and twice during the one year and ten months of re-employment. But the Ministry of Employment and Labor allows workers already living in a temporary structure that fails the standards to move freely if they wish, and those moves are not counted against the cap.⁷

Part 5 · The words about safety

That is how much the work differs from farm to farm. But there are things you have to watch out for on any farm.

The first is heat. Look at the figures from the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. In the summer of 2024, 3,704 people went to an emergency room because of heat, and an estimated 34 of them died. These are the cases reported by the emergency rooms taking part in the survey. By location, 2,914 cases (78.7%) happened outdoors, more than indoors. Among the outdoor cases, 1,176 (31.7%) were at outdoor worksites and 529 (14.3%) were in fields and paddies. Looking only at the 34 deaths, fields and paddies had the most at 8.⁹

So the first sentences to learn on a farm are the ones that tell people how your body feels.

• "어지러워요." (eojireowoyo / "I feel dizzy.")
• "머리가 아파요." (meoriga apayo / "I have a headache.")
• "토할 것 같아요." (tohal geot gatayo / "I feel like throwing up.")
• "그늘에서 좀 쉬어야 할 것 같아요." (geuneureseo jom swieoya hal geot gatayo / "I think I need to rest in the shade.")

Pushing through it does not help. If you cannot say these sentences and you collapse, you lose that day of work and the next one too.

The second is machines and chemicals. The brush cutter is one of the skills test tasks. It is a machine with a fast spinning blade, it throws stones, and it moves close to your feet. The official study materials give safety rules and disqualification conditions for each task.³ On days when chemicals are sprayed, you will be told to wear a mask and gloves. Ask at the same time when it is safe to go back in.

This shows up on the exam as well. The EPS-TOPIK exam standards describe the content as Korean language ability, understanding of Korean culture, and industrial safety and health.¹⁰

Part 6 · The words you use while working

After safety, the words you hear most are about the job in front of you. The seven words below come up often on farms.¹¹

Farms also have words that are in no dictionary. The Rural Development Administration has collected these and suggested standard Korean words to use instead, and two of the confirmed ones come up often in the field. 나라시 (narasi) means levelling the soil out flat, and 로터리 (roteori) means using a machine to till and level the soil in a field.¹² You do not need to use these words yourself. You only need to understand them when you hear them.

Part 7 · When the words arrive inside a sentence

On a farm, these words never come alone. They arrive inside short instruction sentences.

Farm instructions often come attached to time and weather. Rain changes the order of the day, and some jobs have to be done before the heat arrives. So the part about by when and in what order often matters more than the part about what to do.

The way 봐 (bwa), 놔 (nwa), and 둬 (dwo) attached to a verb change its meaning is the same on any work site. "해 봐" (hae bwa) means try it once now, and "해 놔" (hae nwa) means finish it completely and leave it ready.

The words from above, inside real sentences

When you do not understand

Do not just nod. Memorize these three sentences.

• "다시 한번 말해 주세요." (dasi hanbeon malhae juseyo / "Please say that one more time.")
• "천천히 말해 주세요." (cheoncheonhi malhae juseyo / "Please speak slowly.")
• "지금 할까요? 나중에 할까요?" (jigeum halkkayo? najunge halkkayo? / "Should I do it now, or later?")

The last one is especially useful on a farm, because the weather keeps changing the order. Even if you miss the exact instruction, knowing the timing saves you from big mistakes.

Wrapping Up

You cannot choose your farm now. What you can prepare now is what you will hear in your first week. Three things.

First, start with the sentences about how your body feels. "어지러워요", "머리가 아파요", "쉬어야 할 것 같아요". Of the 34 people who died from heat in 2024, the largest group, 8 people, was in fields and paddies. These three sentences come before any tool name.

Second, learn the farm words. 파종, 모종, 수확, 선별, 비료, 사료, 축사. Add the names of the six skills test tasks, and your first week gets noticeably easier.

Third, learn instructions together with their timing. "비 오기 전에" (before it rains), "오늘은 여기까지" (that is it for today), "이건 나중에" (this one later). On a farm, when to do it changes more often than what to do. Learn the three "please repeat" sentences alongside them.

If you are not sure where to begin, look again at the questions you answered in Part 2. If the heat worries you, start with 그늘 (shade), 쉬다 (to rest), and 어지럽다 (to feel dizzy). If the animals worry you, start with 사료, 축사, and 물통 (water trough).

Your application says only "agriculture and livestock." What you will actually meet is a greenhouse, an orchard, an animal barn. Think in those specific words now, and you will understand far more in your first week in Korea.

Practice with SEDA

Safety words and work words are easy to forget after you see them once. Later, when you hear them on a farm, they may not come back to you.

Try SEDA's reading questions on safety and health. Save the ones you get wrong to Review Notes. You will get reminders at D+3, D+7, and D+30. You meet the same expression three times on three different days.

Download SEDA — free on iOS and Android

References