Farm safety Foundation /Yellow Wellies Charity is promoting it's 13th Annual Farm Safety week and encouraging the industry to shine a spot light on health and safety standards and attitudes to health and safety on Farms.
Fatal and serious industry statistics year on year remain stubbornly high so its still important to have the conversation.
Farm Safety Week is an annual awareness raising campaign focusing attention on the magnitude of the problem and on how promoting and creating a safety and health culture can help reduce the number of work related deaths and injuries every year.
In previous years the safety awareness focus has been on the higher risk activities that lead to most fatalities and serious injuries such as; working with moving vehicles and machinery, working with cattle and work at height.
This year the focus is on to challenge yourselves about any 'risk taking' behaviours and also remember the less obvious but still important issues such as always wearing PPE when driving an ATV and handling chemicals.
The question is on the 13th anniversary -- would you leave your own Safety on Farm down to luck? and persist in risk taking behaviours and inadequate health and safety practices to get the job done - and hope that you will escape injury and live to tell the tale
- or
are you and your team going to make the change and have conversations about improving health, safety and welfare on farm.
Farm Safety Foundation carried out research in 2023 and found that approximately 21% of staff that took part in the survey, stated that they were willing to take a risk with their own safety when carrying out a task on farm and approximately a third of staff stated that they would never stop and carry out a risk assessment before starting a work task.
Last year NFU were discussing how common risk taking behaviours on farm were, and encouraging everyone to stop and take 5 minutes to think and plan work rather than rushing in and potentially putting yourself at risk of injury.
Taking 5 To Stay Alive
It doesn't matter what aspect of farm safety or your own wellbeing it is, the idea of taking 5 minutes before each task, allows you time to evaluate the task at hand and implement ways to make the task safer.
You tend to think of accidents being caused by safety issues such as damaged guarding or poor equipment but human factors contribute significantly to accident and injury on farm.
Typical human behaviours which can increase the risk of accidents and injury are :-
- Taking Short cuts
- Being over confident in abilities, - 'it will never happen to me' attitude
- Poor housekeeping in work areas, dairy parlour etc
- Rushing in and starting a task before getting all the information about the job ( e.g. risk assessments, safe systems of work, correct work equipment and PPE etc)
- Not following safety procedures - 'job is only going to take a few minutes'
- Not preparing for the job adequately
- Mental distractions - thinking about other things other than the job in hand and loosing concentration
So what can you do to reduce the risk? :-
Stop and Plan
Ask yourself these questions :-
- Do I have the right tools & equipment?
- What could go wrong? - Do i understand all the potential hazards?
- Am I (They) adequately trained and competent?
- Do I understand/have experience of managing the risks?
- Is there a safer way to do it?
- What do I need to do before I start? Are there additional safety measures I need to think about?
Developing a positive and open safety culture on farm is an important step to get everyone talking about health, safety and welfare on farm that it becomes normalised in conversation and how the business operates.
Develop a Safety Culture :-
- Ensure that everyone moves away from 'Because I have always done it that way' type of thinking - including the older most experienced members of the team.
- Develop a 'Stop and Think' approach to work activities - rather than 'Rushing to Get the Job done'.
- Increase staff health & safety awareness on the farm - invest in refresher farm safety awareness and other training so that everyone understands the potential hazards rather than being over familiar.
- Involve staff doing risk assessments - a key way to cement learning about assessing hazards and thinking about safe working methods to reduce risk of injury.
- 'Talk the Talk and Walk the Walk' Make sure the job is discussed with everyone involved and it becomes second nature to stop and plan a safe way of working.
Remember that creating a culture of health and safety on farm does go beyond just having a plan in place. Creating an environment on the farm where everyone feels comfortable discussing safety, can help significantly to reduce the risk of accidents and injury.
Typical examples of initiatives could be :-
- Making sure that everyone is encouraged to report hazards, near misses or other safety concerns and make time to discuss them with the Team
- Ensure that everyone has access to the PPE they need and store it in a nearby location to where it is to be used, lead by example and make sure it's normal for everyone to wear it.
- Invest in health and safety training and ensure that everyone is trained and competent to do their job. Provide supervision for less experienced staff.
- Teach everyone how to carry out dynamic risk assessments and Stop and Plan work before they proceed. Ensure that the know its ok to STOP and rethink a work activity if they think its unsafe.
- Stay in touch - make sure that everyone can stay in touch around the farm throughout their working day and set up Whats App groups or similar so that team can check in with each other when working remotely or different times of the day.
I found this statement which I think says it all :-
"Farm safety isn't just about compliance with regulations. Its about making sure everyone on your farm gets home safe. Today, Tomorrow Every Day"
