Income inequality in rural South Korea reached its worst level in 2011 due largely to the government’s misguided agricultural policies, a report showed Thursday.

The top 20 percent of the rural households earned an average of 74.62 million won ($68,400) in 2011, a whopping 12.3 times the 6.09 million won for the bottom 20 percent, according to the report released by Rep. Hwang Ju-hong of the main opposition Democratic United Party.

The income gap between the two brackets was much larger than 9.7 times in 2010, 8.9 times in 2009 and 8.6 times in 2008.

Compared with 2008, the annual income of the upper 20 percent rose by 4 million last year, while that of the lower 20 percent declined by more than 2 million won, according to the report.

Last year’s rural income gap was much wider than that among urban households. The average income of the top 20 percent of urban households was 5.9 times higher than that of the lower 20 percent.

Lawmaker Hwang attributed the deepening rural income inequality to the government’s agricultural policies, which are focused on nurturing large farms at the expense of small and mid-sized ones.

“In order to tackle the issue of rural income inequality, the government should come up with diverse measures to boost the income of smaller farms, which account for more than 80 percent of rural households,” the lawmaker said. (Yonhap News)