Decline in Farm Workplace Fatalities
17 December 2007
The number of fatalities on Irish farms declined markedly in 2007. To date this year, there have been 10 fatalities, a decline of 44 per cent on the previous two years. In both 2006 and 2005, 18 farm deaths occurred.
Teagasc Health and Safety Officer John McNamara said: “The downward trend in farm deaths must be tempered by the knowledge that far too many tragic accidents occur on farms each year. In addition to the fatalities, an estimated 1,800 accidents, causing serious injury suffering and disability, occur each year.”
Mr. McNamara called for extra vigilance over the winter months. He pointed out that a quarter of all farm deaths take place in the months of January, February and March. January is a high risk month due to the increasing workload after the holiday period. A joint prevention initiative to cut accident levels on farms is being undertaken by Teagasc and the Health and Safety Authority. John McNamara pinpointed the following safety areas for special attention, based on accident reports:
- The safety of ‘senior’ farmers particularly when tractors and loaders are operating and reversing in farmyards.
- Ensuring that power shafts, particularly those used in stationary situations such as on slurry tankers and corn grinders are completely covered to EU standards.
- Ensuring that slurry and water tanks and access manholes are securely covered.
- Gaining access to heights should only be attempted using secure means and by persons who are fit for this work. Ladders should be tied or secured. Properly supported roofing ladders or crawler boards should be used if attempting to work on roofs.
- Hay or straw stacks should be secured to prevent them collapsing.
Farm Safety Code of Practice
The findings of a Teagasc national survey on use of the Farm Safety Code of Practice were also released today. This Document was issued to all farmers last year and the survey indicates that 42 per cent of farmers have completed the document. This is a higher level of uptake than occurred in 2003 when just 28 per cent of farmers completed the Self Assessment Document.
This is the first sector-specific Code of Practice to be prepared under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act, 2005. This allows employers to comply with the terms of a Code of Practice as an alternative to completing a more elaborate Safety Statement. The Teagasc Rural Economy Research Centre carried out the survey as part of the 2007 National Farm Survey which represents over 112,000 farms. It found that specialist dairy farmers were the most likely to have completed the Code of Practice with 54 per cent completion rate. Just under half of farmers in the categories - dairying/drystock, non-suckling drystock, and tillage had completed the Code of Practice. However, just one third of the cattle/suckler farms or mainly sheep farms had completed the document.
Those individuals with larger farms were found to be more likely to have completed their Farm Safety Code of Practice. Those with over 100 hectares had a 63 per cent completion rate, compared to just one in five farmers with under 10 hectares. Mr. McNamara said that 73 per cent of farmers who used the Code of Practice found it to be ‘good’ or ‘excellent’.
The national survey found that the Farm Safe DVD which accompanied the Code of Practice was watched by a quarter of the farmers surveyed. John McNamara said Teagasc would continue its programme of providing half-day training courses for farmers to help them complete and implement the Health and Safety Code of Practice during 2008.
