Health and safety is a growing issue on our farms, writes Agriculture Correspondent Seán MacConnell
LAST WEEK the annual workplace fatality statistics were released, and showed that Irish farms are in a place all on their own when it comes to this gruesome league table.
In 2007, 11 people lost their lives on farms in the Republic, keeping agriculture at the top of the list of the most dangerous workplaces in the country with the highest fatality rate at 8.3 per 100,000 workers.
Now the carnage on farms in the Republic stands at 10 fatalities, just one short of the total for last year. There have been a further six in Northern Ireland so far this year.
That is very bad news indeed because peak killing time has not yet arrived. The experts know that harvest time is a time of great danger, matched only by holiday time when children are at home and around an environment cluttered with farm machinery, animals and dangerous places such as slurry tanks.
But in recent years a new monster has arrived on the back of the Celtic Tiger, according to Frank Laffey, Teagasc's farm safety specialist.
"Since the arrival of the Celtic Tiger, the number of elderly people, that is people over 65, [working on farms] has been rising, and in recent years 50 per cent of all farm deaths involved farmers over this age," he said.
"Some of these were retired people who are looking after farms when the main breadwinner is holding down an off-farm job. They died when handling stock or from falls, or around machinery," he says.
New research presented to the All-Island Farm Health and Safety conference in Monaghan recently showed a 110 per cent increase in the average number of fatal accidents between 1993 and 2007 on farms among those over 60 years of age.
Last year's figures showed that loss of control of animals was one of the major causes of accidents on farms, and the second largest cause of accidents was manual handling-related injuries.
"While there is no concrete proof to support this assertion, many of us believe that farm animals are becoming wilder and that is why one of our key recommendations to farmers is that they build proper handling faciliities," says Laffey. "With so many people now holding off-farm jobs (it could be as high as 60 per cent at this stage) animals are not being handled or seen as often as they had in the past by farmers.
"They might be seen in the morning or at night but there is not the same level of interaction between the farmer and his animals as in the past, and this is certainly creating a problem," he says.
The veterinary profession has already brought this up as an issue and many of them are finding difficulty treating or testing animals, especially in the West of Ireland.
There is also a deep suspicion that new breeds of larger Continental-bred animals are not as easy to handle as the traditional breeds Irish farmers kept some 20 or 30 years ago.
Teagasc, the agriculture and food development authority, has carried out some scientific research into the subject of animal behaviour because of the growing problem in the past year. The new studies on how animal behaviour relates to human safety were carried out by Dr Bernadette Earley, an animal welfare scientist, of Grange Beef Research Centre, Co Meath.
She studied the subject using four tests involving pure-bred and cross-bred cattle relating to "animal flight", "docility", "fear" and a "crush" test, where animals were restrained in a cattle crush.
The "flight" test indicated that pure-bred animals were far less approachable than cross-breds allowing an approach distance of just half that for cross-breds, before fleeing.
The "fear" test indicated that in general animals were more agitated when isolated from other animals. Cattle were less agitated when in the presence of a stationary person or when concentrate feed was available.
The "crush" test indicated that animals were more agitated in a crush, with 12 per cent being difficult to handle by one person.
She said research at the Grange centre showed the fear response of cattle was affected by genetic and psychological make-up, the way animals were handled and the individual personality of the animal.
Her findings were presented to the Monaghan health and safety conference where a special paper outlining the concern of the authorities in Northern Ireland on the number of elderly people being killed on farms by livestock was also presented.
The Minister for Labour Affairs Billy Kelleher, who had officially opened the Monaghan conference, said he had been very struck by the similarities between the situation in the North and the Republic.
"There is no doubt about it but we are seeing more elderly people being killed on farms, and I suppose it has to do with all the factors we see around us," he said.
"My own father, for instance, is 79-years-old, and he helps around my farm and moves cattle and he would not be as fleet of foot as he was in the past," he said. "The whole profile of farming is changing, with more and more people doing it part time and that leaves the older people, fathers and grandfathers at home, and they help out," he said.
He said the culture of all family members being involved in farming activity was a good one and he would like to see it preserved, but not at the expense of people dying.
Both the Minister and Frank Laffey appealed to parents visiting farms this summer to be extra careful, especially around livestock, and to older farmers to be particularly careful this harvest.