June is the busiest month of the year in South Korea's farming communities. With rice transplanting complete, full-scale field work is underway, and farm households are inspecting machinery and facilities in preparation for the monsoon season and summer heat. Yet the daily rhythms of rural life that produce such abundance are never far from unexpected danger.
In practice, accidents involving overturned cultivators and tractors, entanglement in farm machinery, and falls and suffocation inside livestock barns occur with troubling regularity. Last year alone, 297 farmers lost their lives and more than 50,000 were injured. The agricultural sector's accident rate is roughly seven times the national average across all industries, and its fatality rate is three times higher. The reality that the workplaces of the people who feed the nation still carry such grave risks is one we all must confront.
The rural population is aging rapidly even as farm work grows more mechanized. Extreme heat, typhoons and torrential rains have become routine hazards in an era of climate crisis. The growing role of women farmers and foreign workers has also broadened both the scope and the methods required for effective safety management. Protecting the lives and safety of farmers has moved beyond a matter of personal responsibility — it is now an essential condition for the long-term sustainability of Korean agriculture.
To minimize on-site accidents and create a safer working environment, the government has recently drawn up a comprehensive safety management plan for the agriculture and forestry sector. The plan aims to cut the rate of deaths and injuries by 25 percent by 2030, with measures spanning improved safety standards for farm machinery and facilities, stronger protections for vulnerable groups — including elderly farmers, women farmers and foreign workers — and a broader push to embed a culture of safety and reinforce the legal framework underpinning it.
Above all, the plan shifts the emphasis from compensating victims after accidents occur to preventing accidents in the first place.
For cultivators, which account for a disproportionate share of accidents, the government will reform the system to allow clutch-type steering mechanisms to be replaced with easier-to-operate handlebar controls, and will support the scrapping of aging machines. To prevent the high-fatality rollovers and tip-overs that claim many lives each year, mandatory installation of protective structures will be expanded to cover forklifts and excavators, and ride-on farm machinery will be required to carry audible seatbelt warning alarms. A network of accident-detection devices will also be rolled out so that emergency information is automatically relayed to the 119 rescue service when a farm machinery accident occurs.
Alongside this, safety measures for livestock facilities — where suffocation and fall accidents are frequent — will be strengthened. The government will support the purchase of safety equipment such as ventilation fans, ducts and air-supply masks, focusing initially on pig farms, to deliver tangible improvements on the ground. In addition, the government plans to enact dedicated legislation on farm work safety promotion and accident prevention to put the safety management system on a firmer legal footing.
Every meal we sit down to each day is made possible by the sweat and hard work of countless farmers. When they can work with peace of mind, our tables remain full and stable food production becomes possible. Safe agriculture is the starting point for sustainable agriculture.
The government will continue to examine even the smallest hazards on the farm and work to build an environment where farmers can do their jobs without worry. We will press steadily forward toward the goal of "a safe workplace guaranteed by the state, and a prosperous Korea built together with healthy farmers." Protecting the lives of those who nurture life — that is the government's duty and its promise to the people.
By Kim Jong-gu, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs
adastra@heraldcorp.com
