The farmers accident compensation insurance system is on the verge of a crisis. With the ratio of revenue to expenditure being 100 to 131.5, it has become extremely difficult to indemnify the insured or their beneficiaries for bodily injury and death due to accidental means.
This reflects rapid progress in mechanization of farm work and aging of the farming population, which results in an alarming increase in the number of serious accidents. A check on a survey taken by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in 1992 reveals that the number of accidents in which farmers were killed while at work amounts to 401 cases. Of this number, 256 cases, or 63.8%, involved persons of 60 years and above, indicating the dead and injured in agricultural accidents are increasing in number among elderly people.
In Kanagawa Prefecture, a total of 446 accidents involving farmers and agricultural machinery have occurred over the past eight years. The average number of days lost by injured persons in the agricultural accidents worked out at 39 days. The average occurrence rate of an agricultural accident per 1, 000 persons came to 14.4, nearly three times as high as the average 5.2 for the rest of industries. A look at the accident occurrence rate in 1993 per 1, 000 persons insured under the workmen's accident compensation insurance system also showed that it was 28.0 for agriculture, compared with 16.5 for construction industry and the average 13.8 for all industries. This clearly indicates that agriculture has been transformed into a type of industry “structurally” in great peril.
Such being the circumstances, it is urgent that bold measures should be taken to inprove the balance between expenditure and revenue in the workers accident compensation insurance that has to do with agriculture. Among the measures we would like to propose here:(1) to promote accident prevention measures and hold in check an outlay for compensation;(2) to increase the number of the insured and garner more premiums;(3) to increase basic premium rates (?);(4) to beef up the secretariat of JA (?); and (5) to establish a safety-first administrative management.

The results of pulmonary function tests (PFTs) given to those inhabitants in the western part of Kanagawa Prefecture who visited our hospital for medical examinations between April 1991 and March 1992 were studied comparatively, with their occupation, age, sex, environmental factors and smoking habits taken into account. For this purpose, the subjects totaling 1, 322 were classified into three groups-those who live in the hilly area, those who live in the suburban area and those who live in the coastal area. In the present study, the results of the four PFT items-FVC, FEV 1.0%, FVC and FEV 1.0%-were checked. Careful examination brought into relief the startling fact that many aged people, non-farmers and nonsmokers in the suburban subject group have impaired pulmonary function. It is said that because of the Tokyo-Nagoya expressway and many other motorways, the air in the suburban area is fouled up with exhaust gas to a greater extent than in the other two areas. Although our finding alone could not identify the cause of impaired pulmonary function definitely, air pollution was thought to be a culprit. Further investigation should be made into the living conditions of the examinees. Moreover, environmental monitoring and data analysis have to be carried out in the future.