Western Morning News (Saturday)
Farm deaths fall – but still ‘too high’
FARM deaths have fallen to their lowest level on record, according to new figures from the Health and Safety Executive.
Publishing its latest workplace fatal injuries report, the regulator revealed there were a total of 20 fatal incidents in agriculture, forestry and fishing from April 2019 to March 2020 – down from an annual average of 27.
But despite the decrease, the sector still accounts for around 20% of all worker deaths, the figures add, with the fatal injury rate remaining some 18 times higher than the allindustry average.
Sarah Albon, chief executive of the HSE, said it was “unacceptable” that agriculture still accounted for a large percentage of all worker deaths.
“These statistics remind us that in certain sectors of the economy, fatal injury in the workplace remains worryingly high,” she explained.
“Agriculture, forestry and fishing accounts for a small fraction of the workforce in Great Britain, yet accounted for around 20% of worker fatalities in the last year.
“This is unacceptable and more must be done to prevent such fatalities taking place.”
According to the report, a total of 111 workers were killed at work in Britain during 2019-20, which represents a decrease of 38 from the previous year and the lowest annual number on record.
The highest number of fatal injuries came from the construction sector, with 40 people losing their lives.
Falls from a height accounted for the highest number of deaths with 29, followed by being struck by a moving vehicle (20), struck by a moving object (18), trapped by something collapsing / overturning (15) and contact with moving machinery (11). In the South West, there were 13 workplace deaths in 2019-20, compared to an annual average of 12 for the five-year period of 2015-16 to 2019-20.
And in terms of age, the figures showed that 27% of fatal injuries in 2019-20 were to workers aged 60 and over, even though such workers made up only around 10% of the workforce.
Stuart Roberts, deputy president of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), said that while the figures show an “important drop” in fatalities, there’s still “significantly more to do”.
He added: “Last year we lost too many of our family, friends and colleagues in the workplace – one fatality is one too many. For the past few years we have seen many in the industry consciously prioritising health and safety and I hope these figures indicate the start of a downward trend which is underpinned by a culture change in the agriculture sector.
“There will be variations year on year and we need to see longer-term sustained improvement before we can say that farm safety has fundamentally changed.”
In certain sectors of the economy, fatal injury in the workplace remains worryingly high SARAH ALBON, HSE