Health and safety challenges

AS part of our role within the Wales Farm Safety Partnership, the FUW continues to work hard with affiliated organisations to combat the serious health and safety challenges on our farms.

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

Farm safety is above politics and all organisations here in Wales who are signed up to the ‘On Farm Health and Safety Charter for Wales’ are committed to: “Working together to make farming safer”.

It is therefore sad that since the end of April we have received seven fatality notifications from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

Seven more families who are grieving the loss of a loved one, whose lives have been forever changed.

The total this year so far: 16.

Reasons listed for these fatal incidents include being struck by a vehicle whilst working with livestock, killed when working with cattle and newborn calves, struck by part of an excavator, ATV overturned while spraying vegetation, crushed between the back of a tractor and a mounted mower, quad bike overturned and killed by a bull.

Life on the farm is busy, stressful at times and the current situation is probably not helping.

The kids are still home, we’re worried about people walking across our farm yards and spreading a potentially deadly virus and then there might be a TB test looming, or we need to make a dash on the quad bike to fetch livestock that have escaped. And most of the time we can handle the speed at which things have to be sorted.

However, whichever way you look at it, we have serious health and safety challenges on our farms: Over the last 20 years, other industries such as construction and quarrying have greatly improved their safety records, while farming has not, and it is frightening that you are now six times more likely to be killed on a farm than you would on a building site.

So whilst the rest of the world is in crisis for a myriad of reasons, please do your utmost to ensure that there isn’t one on your farm. Especially if it can be avoided. For more information and advice on how to stay safe on farm, please visit the Health and Safety Executive website: https://www.hse.gov.uk/ agriculture/