Don’t take any risks on the farm

BY the end of this week the clocks will be going back and we officially enter British winter time.

The mornings take a while to get light now and the nights are drawing in quickly. Not that this has much of an impact on what goes on the farm, the same jobs still need doing either way. Please remember to be careful though – farm safety is as important now as it is any other time of year.

Sadly, loss of life due to accidents on farms continues to be reported and in order to improve the situation and to save lives, we will continue to provide expert advice and guidance in conjunction with the Health and Safety Executive.

We recently teamed up with farm safety trainer Brian Rees, who ran two practical on-farm safety workshops for us. As Brian said: 70 to 80% of farmers don’t think we have a problem. As long as it doesn’t happen to them, we’ll just carry on. But look at the figures – they are truly sobering.

Only a few months ago we heard from Health and Safety Executive representative Christopher Maher outlining the latest statistics – a total of 41 fatalities were recorded in 2020/2021. This figure included nine employees killed, 25 self-employed farm workers killed and seven members of the public killed. This is an increase from the 21 fatalities reported the previous year.

Agriculture by metric, he told us, is one of the most, if not the most, dangerous industry within the UK. In 2020/2021 the agricultural fatal injury rate in the UK was 20 times higher than the average for all other industries.

Welsh farming fatalities for 2020/2021 included seven farmers, four farmers were hit by a moving vehicle, either whilst another person was driving or when they left the vehicle to complete a task. Two farmers, a father and son, were killed by a water buffalo and one farmer was killed when his ATV overturned.

Of course, accidents will happen no matter how careful we are. But when they do happen, one of the first people you call is your insurance company. On that note I urge you to get in touch with your local FUW Insurance Services representative or county office to make sure you have the right cover in place. Simple points to remember do make a difference though. For example, it doesn’t cost anything to look behind you when you reverse, it doesn’t cost anything to put the handbrake on, it doesn’t cost anything to clean your vehicle’s windows, it doesn’t cost anything to check the tyre pressure on your quad bike.

Money isn’t a factor in safety. So please, don’t take any risks and be safe on farm this autumn and winter.