This week (17-21 July) is Farm Safety Week, which is an annual campaign that focuses on raising awareness and changing attitudes to prevent life-changing injuries.
It follows the Health and Safety Executive's (HSE) latest workplace fatalities report, which flagged agriculture as statistically the most dangerous industry in the country.
HSE report
The report shows that in the last year, there have been 21 recorded farmworker deaths in the UK. A further six members of the public, including one child, were also fatally injured on farms, bringing the total to 27.
According to HSE for Northern Ireland, farming accounted for three of the eight (38%) reported workplace fatalities in 2022/23. While other industries have seen a reduction in worker death rates, agriculture remains high.
Due to higher-than-average retirement ages, the sector is also seeing a worrying trend in incidents among the over-65s.
Stephanie Berkeley, Manager at the Fire Safety Foundation/Yellow Wellies, said: "While we are seeing an encouraging improvement in the attitudes and behaviours in the next generation of farmers, we are also seeing a disproportionately higher number of older farmers losing their lives in farm incidents – 33% of fatal injuries were in people over the age of 65".
"The fact is, every single one of us living and working in the industry needs to step up and take responsibility, and challenge and change their attitudes so we can make our farms safer places to work and to live".
Take 5 to stay alive
The National Farmers Union (NFU) has called for the agricultural industry to change its attitude towards farm safety by launching its "Take 5 to Stay Alive" campaign, which urges farmers to take a five-minute break to think about the task they are about to do, and to ask whether there are any safety precautions that they could take before starting out.
NFU Vice-president, David Exwood, said: "People are our most valuable assets and we should all be thinking about our safety on farm 365 days a year".
"But Farm Safety Week is an excellent way for us to come together, raise awareness, and share practical advice about how to look after ourselves and each other out in the field. We all have to talk more about safety".
For more information on this subject, see:
