Supporting farmers to take immediate farm safety actions

Mohammad Mohammadrezaei, David Meredith, and John McNamara discuss findings from the BeSafe Project and how farmers can play a significant role in designing farm safety interventions.
Agriculture extension and advisory services are increasingly focused on improving the sustainability of farming. Much of the attention to date has concentrated on the environmental and economic dimensions of sustainability.
There is, however, a growing policy focus on the issue of social sustainability. In addition to societal concerns, e.g. reducing use of antibiotics and improving animal welfare, there is also consideration of the issue of the social sustainability of the farm, i.e. generational renewal and gender, and farmer sustainability, including the health and wellbeing of farmers and farm safety.
To date, extensive research has focused on understanding the characteristics of farm-related injuries rather than understanding farmer’s decision making regarding farm safety. This is associated with a ‘top down’ approach of increasing awareness, which considered the problem to be one of a lack of information or understanding, and regulatory approaches to occupational safety, which treat the problem as one of compliance.
Despite these efforts, the numbers killed or injured on farms throughout the EU remains high. These issues present significant challenges to farm advisors as they are non-traditional areas in which the advisor may have limited expertise; they represent habitual work practices of farmers, i.e. those developed over time and transferred between generations which advisors and farmers may be reluctant to consider/challenge; and, individual farmer safety behaviours are influenced by the wider farming culture.
BeSafe project and research approach
In BeSafe project, we applied the concept of the ‘good farmer’ to assess the effect of culture on selected safety practices associated with operation of tractors and livestock handling and utilised the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to evaluate the role of ‘good farmers’ in shaping these practices.
We argue that whilst education and training are important, understanding what and, more specifically, who shapes farmer behaviour or practices is key to the development of effective occupational safety interventions.
Findings
The results indicate there are three distinct groups of farmers, those who are unsafe, those who are currently unsafe but wish to be safer, and those who are safe.
Unsafe farmers, over 57% of those surveyed, believe that risk taking is part of being a ‘good farmer’, and this reflects cultural expectations within farming families and the wider farming community. Most intend to be safe in the future. This population typically take risks, do not think they will experience an injury and believe taking risks is what a ‘good farmer’ does.
Approximately 26% of farmers are generally safe and are drawn from all ages, genders, and enterprises. They believe a ‘good farmer’ is a safe farmer and this view is shared by people they identify as ‘important others’.
Finally, 17% of farmers are neither safe nor unsafe; they try to behave safely but believe that ‘good farmers’ take risks.
Recommendations and practical implications
We recommend ‘safe farmers’ and their ‘important others’ are involved in co-designing with farm advisors and supporting the implementation of community based interventions that target other farmers from the same background or a similar farm system.
To achieve such an approach, the facilitating skills of advisors will be required firstly to raise interest of farm communities in farm safety. Then training is required to identify farmers in various categories including ‘safe farmer’ and ‘neither safer or unsafe’ and ’unsafe’.
When these requirements are in place, advisor would be in a position to match farmers and their ‘important others’ from various behavioural safety categories to engage in activities where farmers are positively influence towards safety behaviour. E.g. ‘Safe farmers influencing ‘neither’ farmers.
The BeSafe project recently hosted a major international conference on farm safety and farmer wellbeing. Thirty papers were delivered over the course of three days covering three topics: farm safety – from research to practice; policy and culture; and farmer wellbeing. For more information on the BeSafe project, click here.
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