'Cuts, Punctures, Entanglements, Being Caught, and Falls'... The Grim Reaper of Agricultural Accidents Emerges

Doubling the Number of "Rural Safety Guardians": 88 Agricultural Work Safety Managers Deployed
From Risk Assessment to Improvement
Reducing Agricultural Accidents through Preventive Education and Safety Consulting

The government is strengthening its support system for the prevention of agricultural work-related accidents by expanding the number of agricultural work safety managers who identify potential risks in agricultural tasks in advance and provide consulting on improvement measures, with the aim of reducing accidents among farmers in the field.

The Rural Development Administration announced on May 14 that it will more than double the scale of its agricultural work safety manager support program, increasing the number from 40 last year to 88 this year.

Lee Seungdon, Administrator of the Rural Development Administration, is conducting an on-site inspection of agricultural fields. Rural Development Administration

A representative from the Rural Development Administration explained, "With the expansion of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act and other measures, farmers are now required to take greater responsibility for the safety management of their workers. However, awareness and capacity for safety in the agricultural field remain weak. By increasing the number of agricultural work safety experts who visit farms, assess the risks associated with agricultural work, identify potential hazards, and provide tailored consulting on improvement measures, we aim to prevent serious accidents in the agricultural sector."

An agricultural work safety manager is an expert who visits farms in person, assesses the risks involved in agricultural work, identifies hazards, and provides tailored consulting on improvement measures. In the industrial sector, regulations require workplaces above a certain size to appoint a safety manager, but until now, the agricultural sector has operated without dedicated safety personnel.

In reality, both major and minor accidents frequently occur at agricultural work sites. According to the "Survey on Occupational Injuries of Farmers" conducted by the Rural Development Administration last year, 2.8% of farmers—meaning 3 out of every 100—were unable to work for at least one day due to accidents that occurred during agricultural tasks. In terms of accident types, slips and falls accounted for the largest proportion at 35.3%, followed by falls from heights (14.6%), overexertion or excessive movement (12.4%), single-vehicle accidents involving riding-type agricultural machinery (10.8%), cuts or punctures (7.0%), and entanglement or being caught in machinery (6.2%).

To address this, the Rural Development Administration has been implementing a support system for the prevention of agricultural work-related accidents, selecting 40 agricultural work safety managers last year and assigning them to 20 cities and counties in four provinces—Gyeonggi, Chungnam, Gyeongbuk, and Gyeongnam—since April. The results have already been visible. Last year, agricultural work safety managers identified 11,920 risk or hazardous factors and improved 10,999 of them, representing an improvement rate of 79%. The rate of accidents among the 2,014 farms that received preventive training or on-site inspections from safety managers dropped to 1.7%, significantly lower than the 5.6% rate among general farms.

For example, a peach farm in Jain-myeon, Gyeongsan, had been operating a tractor under low-hanging communication lines that crossed the orchard, posing a risk of entanglement or tractor rollover. The safety manager requested improvements from the relevant agencies, and the lines were actually repaired. In the case of Yecheon County, Gyeongbuk, the safety manager discovered during a risk assessment that high-voltage power lines crossing a farm road were too low, and, with cooperation from Korea Electric Power Corporation and the local government, the issue was resolved within four hours.

To further strengthen the expertise of agricultural work safety managers, the Rural Development Administration selected 88 personnel in February of this year, provided competency training, and deployed them to 44 cities and counties nationwide. Each region has two safety managers, who primarily support farms employing five or more workers by identifying risks and conducting safety consulting and improvement inspections. They also provide preventive safety education for farmers, carry out on-site risk assessments, and, based on the results, help farms establish and implement their own safety and health management systems. In addition, they will produce materials on safety and convenience technologies needed for agricultural work risk assessments.

In December last year, the Rural Development Administration established a new department, the "Farmer Safety Division," to serve as a control tower for addressing blind spots in agricultural worker safety and started to implement measures for preventing agricultural work-related accidents in earnest. Along with strengthening on-site safety inspections through agricultural work safety managers, the agency is also expanding the installation of Internet of Things (IoT)-based detection and alarm systems at locations prone to overturn and toppling accidents involving agricultural machinery. Furthermore, it plans to build "Safe Farm," an integrated safety and health service using artificial intelligence (AI) and big data, to enable real-time risk detection and emergency remote support. Based on these measures, the goal is to reduce the fatal accident rate in agricultural work by 20% by 2030.

Seungdon Lee, Administrator of the Rural Development Administration, stated, "Going forward, we will expand on-site agricultural work safety management consulting for farms exposed to risks or considered vulnerable. We will do our utmost to distribute scientific prevention technologies that can be felt in the field, build a robust safety net, and create an environment where farmers can work with peace of mind."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.