South Korea targets 25% cut in farm fatalities with auto-alert system, tractor scrappage program

The government plans to cut the death and injury rate in the agriculture and forestry sectors by 25 percent by 2030 through mandatory safety device expansion, a program to retire aging tillers and the introduction of an automatic accident-reporting system.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs announced the "Comprehensive Safety Management Plan for Agriculture and Forestry" Friday at a joint emergency economic headquarters and economic ministers' meeting.

The government developed the plan in response to persistently high accident rates in the agricultural sector, where the industrial disaster rate runs 7.5 times the national average. The farm fatality rate also exceeds the general industrial average by more than three times.

The plan lays out five strategic pillars and 18 initiatives covering stronger farm machinery safety requirements, expanded safety infrastructure at livestock facilities and reservoirs, and enhanced protections for elderly farmers and foreign workers.

Machinery safety will be significantly reinforced to address farm equipment accidents, which account for 59 percent of all farming fatalities. The number of equipment types required to have operator protective structures will expand from four to six, adding forklifts and excavators, and ride-on farm machinery will be required to sound an alarm when the operator is not wearing a seatbelt.

Reflector installation standards will be raised to the level required for motor vehicles to prevent nighttime traffic accidents. The government will also introduce a system that automatically alerts the 119 emergency dispatch center through an accident-detection terminal when a farm machine tips over or overturns.

For tillers, which are involved in accidents at a particularly high rate, the government will encourage owners to scrap aging models and will revise regulations to allow existing walk-behind tillers to be converted to handlebar-steered models. The ministry is reviewing a plan to launch a tiller scrappage support project as a new program in 2027.

The government will expand the supply of ventilation equipment and safety gear at facilities prone to asphyxiation accidents — including slurry pits and collection tanks at hog farms — and will require recipients of the livestock facility modernization program to install safety railings. Safety fences, railings and hazard warning signs will be added at reservoirs and irrigation and drainage channels, and small reservoirs will be brought under the emergency inspection framework for the first time.

Agricultural distribution facilities such as agricultural product processing centers and rice processing complexes will face a strengthened safety management regime under which inspection results determine whether operators receive incentives — such as renovation funding support — or penalties.

In the forestry sector, the government will subsidize the purchase of safety equipment including hydraulic felling machines to reduce logging accidents, and will tighten eligibility rules so that only certified forestry technicians or workers who have completed safety training may participate in logging operations. The deployment of on-site supervisors at logging sites will also be expanded.

The plan also strengthens protections for vulnerable groups in response to the aging rural population and the growing number of foreign workers. Heat illness prevention programs and mobile medical clinic services for elderly farmers will be expanded, and the age ceiling for special health screenings for women farmers will rise from 70 to 80. Foreign seasonal workers will be required to submit a safety checklist at the visa application stage, and multilingual safety education materials will be distributed.

The government will require completion of safety training as a condition for receiving farm machinery purchase subsidies and for participating in youth farmer policy programs, and will increase research and development investment in areas such as musculoskeletal disease prevention equipment and heat illness countermeasure technology. The agriculture sector's safety management R&D budget more than doubled, rising from 2.021 billion won (about $1.32 million) last year to 5.328 billion won this year.

To shift the system from post-accident compensation toward prevention, the government will separate the current Farmers and Fishers Safety Insurance Act — which centers on insurance — and pursue enactment of a new law tentatively titled the Agricultural Work Safety and Disaster Prevention Act. Farmers' safety insurance will be gradually consolidated into higher-coverage products by 2028, bringing protections up to the level of industrial accident insurance. The government is also reviewing a plan to exempt hired farmworkers from liability for damages within a defined scope when safety accidents occur.

To systematically track policy outcomes, fatality statistics for farm work will be converted to nationally approved statistics this year, and non-fatal accident statistics will also be brought under the nationally approved statistics framework by 2028.

Agriculture Minister Song Mi-ryeong said the ministry would "complete the safety management system for the agriculture and forestry sectors through continuous improvement and review of the comprehensive plan, and protect the lives and safety of farmers and forestry workers."