Tackling the rise in farm deaths

There is a real fear that agricultural expansion will lead to more farm deaths, writes SEAN MAC CONNELL, Agriculture Correspondent

TWENTY PEOPLE have died on Irish farms so far this year. At a recent conference on Agricultural Occupational Health and Safety in Dublin, the chief executive of the Health and Safety Authority, Martin O’Halloran read a list of the names of those who had died on farms.

He attached the circumstances of death to each name: whether people had died under machines, were crushed by animals or falling trees. To this catalogue, he added one other word: avoidable.

That is the role of the authority, which has been working with Teagasc, the Agriculture and Food Development Authority, the farm organisations and the insurance companies, to try to avoid all farm deaths and accidents.

In Ireland, farmers have been subject to legislation for safety, health and welfare at work since 1989, and since that time the number of farm fatalities has been as low as nine but as high as the 26 recorded last year. This year the figure is 20 so far.

That is an astonishing figure: it makes up half of the total number of work-related deaths in the country, even though farmers represent only 6 per cent of Ireland’s total workforce.

Across Europe, the figures for farm fatalities are as follows: 120 deaths in Germany last year, 56 in Austria, 23 in Poland and 45 in Britain.

That said, few other workplaces are also the worker’s home, where his family live and interact daily with farm machinery, animals, tall buildings and slurry pits.

Pat Griffin is the senior inspector for agriculture, forestry and fishing at the Health and Safety Authority and too often in the past decade he has had to make trips to investigate farm fatalities.

“It can be very difficult, especially if there is a child involved. People just don’t get over the loss of children and what is ever more difficult for the families is they normally have to pass the scene of the accident dozens of times a day,” he says.

“That is very hard on them. If someone dies in a car accident, it could be miles from home, but with farm accidents they tend to happen around the farmhouse or farmyard, and there is that constant reminder.”

Having seen such misery down the years, he is determined to drive the safety agenda on farms as hard as he can by changing the culture of farmers.

While the EU has an average of 12 farm fatalities for every 100,000 farmers, the US, where safety programmes have been cut severely because of the financial problems there, the figure is 30 in every 100,000 and most deaths are of migrant labourers.

Some of the Scandinavian countries have a mandatory annual payment to cover farm deaths and to provide holiday breaks for farmers to ease their stress. While the model works well, there are still major problems in that country.

Farm organisations here have been united in their opposition to having the issue of safety on the farm linked to agricultural payments from Brussels and Dublin. Until now, those involved in farm safety have been using the carrot rather than the stick approach.

Nearly a third of farmers have not yet filled in a mandatory farm-safety statement, but there have been no prosecutions. Inspections on farms will double this year to 3,000 but will be advisory rather than punitive.

Anyone suggesting farmers who do not keep their farms safe should be penalised, either by loss of direct payment or prosecution, has been treated with contempt.

The idea that cross-compliance should refer to farm safety is one of the main cultural barriers that needs to be breached.

Farmers can lose payments for having untidy sheds, soiled water or losing an animal’s ear tag, so it’s understandable that they believe they are put upon by inspectors of all kinds and cannot make the link between inspections and farm safety.

Dr Richard Hackett, an agricultural consultant, has partially grasped this nettle in a report compiled for the National Rural Network organisation that proposes a radical new approach to the problem.

Hackett recommends a comprehensive national farm-safety training programme and a national testing programme for all agricultural tractors. A “Safe Farm” training programme for farmers and farm employees should also be introduced, he says.

“The programme would be similar to the ‘Safe Pass’ training, which is obligatory for construction workers. It proposes that participation in the Safe Farm programme should be voluntary,” according to the report.

“However, if agreed targets are not met within two years, mandatory training should be considered. The training should be provided by Teagasc, private consultants and independent safety consultants,” it says.

Hackett has also proposed that the completion of safety documents and other safety indicators should be a requirement for participation in farm schemes. Such a requirement already exists for participants in Bord Bia quality-assurance schemes.

One of the more important recommendations Hackett makes is that responsibility for farm safety should be given to one department, not the range of Government departments which handle the issue now.

Hackett says while most farmers are aware of the safety risks on their farms, a significant problem of complacency creeps in, because the farmer can be the only person on the farm daily.

Farming is also unique as a workplace in that there is a blurring of the line between home and work and between work and social activity, he says.

In this regard, the role of planning and design in minimising the health and safety risks arising from farm buildings in close proximity to family dwellings should be addressed.

Finally, he has advocated giving consideration to the inclusion of a health-and-safety training measure in the 2014-2020 Rural Development Programme and says completion of farm health-and-safety training should be linked to selection and eligibility for schemes funded under future rural development measures.

While this would not be a direct cut in payments for non-compliant farmers, it would be a step on the road towards addressing one of the most serious problems in rural Ireland today.

There is no lack of goodwill towards all the programmes in place, but until there are penalties of one kind or another, it is unlikely farmers will prioritise safety on their farms and the avoidable deaths will continue.