According to the report, the biggest cause of work-related ill health in agricultural is from work-related musculoskeletal disorders, but there are other areas where we should be extra cautious both for ourselves and for others on farm.
Simple solutions
These easy to implement solutions can mitigate some of the biggest causes of accidents in agriculture.
- Applying the safe stop on vehicles
- Wearing a helmet when operating ATVs
- Using seatbelts
- Wearing high vis clothing
“We need to continue to work together to share with our friends, family, and neighbours the simple actions we can all take on farm to make a substantial change in preventing devastating accidents from happening."
NFU Vice President, David Exwood
New figures from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) show agriculture once again has the poorest performance in relation to non-fatal injuries in the workplace.
The latest HSE report shows that agriculture has a workplace injury rate of 4,100 per 100,000 workers employed, compared to an all-industry average of 1,110 per 100,00.
What can the industry do to improve safety?
Agriculture has significantly higher injury rates than other industries, and this something the industry is working to change. By helping and learning from each other, we can work towards turning the tide on safety records.
NFU Vice President David Exwood said: “The recently published HSE statistics on the fatal and non-fatal injuries in the agriculture industry remain stubbornly high and make for sombre reading. We need to work together on a new approach to kickstart a cultural change in farming and reach our goal to reduce the devastating injuries on farm.
“We need to continue to work together to share with our friends, family, and neighbours the simple actions we can all take on farm to make a substantial change in preventing devastating accidents from happening.
“The HSE figures show that as an industry we should be more mindful of taking care of ill health at all ages. Farming is a physical job, and to ensure we are working pain-free we need to look after both our mental and physical health.”
Training available
NFU members can take advantage of courses on farm safety to help upskill their training:
