SEOUL - A South Korean pig farmer has defected to North Korea after crossing the heavily fortified land border, the communist state's official media said Tuesday.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) identified the man as Kang Tong-Rim, 30, and said that on Monday he crossed the eastern section of the Demilitarised Zone which bisects the peninsula.

Kang is now under the "warm care" of authorities, the news agency said, and "is pleased with the accomplishment of his desire for defection."

The South-North defection, if confirmed, would be very rare and would be seen as a propaganda coup by Pyongyang. South Korea's unification ministry, which handles cross-border relations, said it was checking the claim.

Tuesday's report carried no criticism of life in the South. After months of hostility, the North in August began making peace overtures to its neighbour and has toned down its verbal attacks.

KCNA said Kang is from the small town of Beolgyo on the south coast and had worked at a pig farm.

The agency said he had tried many times in vain to defect while serving with the South Korean army, in a unit which it identified, from September 2001 to November 2003. After his discharge, he had worked for a time at a Samsung semiconductor company.

More than 2,800 North Koreans arrived in South Korea last year after fleeing hunger or repression in their homeland but very few are known to go the other way.

Seoul's Yonhap news agency said a 45-year-old South Korean man crossed into the North across the border with China in 2007 but was expelled for unknown reasons.

Last month, it said, a 54-year-old man received a suspended prison term in South Korea for trying to defect to Pyongyang through a North Korean embassy.

The North's claim that Kang had crossed the Demilitarised Zone triggered concern in the South.

Approaches to the zone, which extends for two km (1.2 miles) each side of the borderline, are guarded by barbed wire and minefields and civilian access is strictly controlled.

"We are checking and trying to verify that the reported defection through the DMZ is true," a defence ministry spokesman said.

"It is almost impossible for a civilian to gain access to the restricted area or to walk into North Korean territory across the border."

Almost 17,000 North Koreans have arrived in the South since the end of the 1950-53 war. The vast majority cross into China and then travel on to Southeast Asian nations in hopes of reaching the South.