HSE RELEASES LATEST ACCIDENT FIGURES FOR THE INDUSTRY AS FARM SAFETY WEEK BEGINS
Figures just released by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) show that farming continues to have the poorest safety record of any occupation with 27 people losing their lives on GB farms in 2023/24.
While agriculture accounts for just 1% of the working population, it is responsible for 17% of all deaths in the workplace.
This week (22-26 July) marks Farm Safety Week, the annual campaign led and funded by the Farm Safety Foundation (Yellow Wellies) that has helped raise awareness of the dangers of working in the farming industry.
The week brings together over 400 organisations in five countries to help encourage a change in attitudes and behaviours around working safely in the industry.
The Farm Safety Foundation said it wants to explore why farmers don’t take near-miss accidents as an opportunity to improve working practices and it wants them to “reset” the way they approach farm safety and risk-taking.
In the year Farm Safety Week started, 37 people lost their lives on GB farms and, over the past decade, this figure has been steadily decreasing.
While there have been improvements there has been no widespread change in attitude towards safety, and behaviours that would see the number of fatalities drop further.
But the organisation believes that we are starting to see safety improvements in some areas, even if the pace of change is slow.
“We’ve now had 40 years where the fatality numbers have hardly changed – this must be a reset moment for improving safety in our sector,” said NFU Deputy President David Exwood. “Fatigue, familiarity with procedures or hectic schedules are not excuses. We have to stop the culture of risk-taking and make farm safety our number one priority.”
Sue Thompson, head of Agriculture at the HSE said: “Farmers are rightly proud of a reputation of being able to fix anything on the farm; machinery, fencing, equipment, anything. The challenge now is whether farmers can fix the industry’s broken health and safety record.”
The 2024 campaign marks 10 years of the Farm Safety Foundation (Yellow Wellies), a charity set up by leading rural insurer NFU Mutual to raise awareness of, and challenge attitudes to farm safety and poor mental health in the industry.
