▶KT&G employees helped the farmers with harvest in Seongnam county, Cheonan-city, South Chungcheong Province on August 18. KT&G is the only cigarette company in Korea purchasing domestic leaf tobacco and protects farmers in many ways.

KT&G (CEO Bok-in Baek) employees volunteered to help short-handed leaf tobacco farmers with their harvest in South Chungcheon Province.

It is well known that tobacco farming mainly depends on manual labor with high intensity in hot and muggy July and August, and is difficult to be mechanized. In particular, the average age of farmers engaged in Korean domestic tobacco is higher than that of other crops and the farmers also suffer from lack of labor due to decreasing agricultural population.

Since 2007, KT&G employees have participated in volunteer work for tobacco leaf farmers. Twenty employees helped the farmers with harvest in Seongnam county, Cheonan-city, South Chungcheong Province, one of the main tobacco farmlands. They also served health food including chicken-ginseng soup for the elderly farmers to receive good response.

Dongshik Kye, head of raw material production team of KT&G Kimcheon factory, who also participated in the volunteer work said, “It was a meaningful opportunity to understand the difficulty of leaf tobacco farmers and help them during the unprecedented heatwave in summer.

In line with the management philosophy, 'together with people', the company will endeavor for the win-win with tobacco leaf farmers including the transfer of production expertise.”

KT&G is the only cigarette company in Korea purchasing domestic leaf tobacco and protects farmers in many ways. The Company pays for pays for 30 percent of expected sales revenue of leaf tobacco in advance for the farmers and has provided 1,250 million won to sponsor farmers' medical checkups and children's school uniform since year 2013 as well.