Opinion: We should hang our heads in shame at our safety record
© Tim Scrivener As a farmer or farmworker, you are 21 times more likely to be killed at work than the average Briton.
If you are over the age of 45, you occupy the age bracket in which 80% of on-farm deaths occur, and if over the age of 65 the age bracket in which 33% of on-farm deaths occur.
Farmers account for some 1.5% of the workforce, but 20% of workforce deaths.
Between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023, 27 people were killed on British farms, including six members of the public.
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In those 12 months, 21 farmers and farmworkers walked out the door to work one morning, and never walked back in. They were dead, leaving behind them lives unfulfilled and families in mourning.
Most likely they were killed during livestock handling, from being struck by a moving vehicle or piece of machinery, or by a fall from height.
The year and the names change, but the largely avoidable risks do not.
As it happens, 2022-23 was a less-bad-than-usual year for farm fatality figures, given that the five-year average rate stands at 31 deaths.
Yet by the start of the industry’s annual Farm Safety Week in July, there had already been 12 deaths in the three months since 1 April.
Extrapolate that for the year, and we’re currently on course for a record number of early rural funerals.
We’re also the only industry in which children are often among those killed; already since April two have joined that most grim column of statistics. The grief of the families involved must be incalculable.
In short, we have an appalling health and safety record in agriculture, and we should hang our heads in collective shame.
Yet the cavalier approach seen on many farms continues year on year, with “health and safety” often being mentioned only as a source of amusement or scorn, as if the rules – both legal and of life and death – don’t apply to us.
How many take patently unsafe vehicles onto public highways without functioning lights, brakes or straps on loads? How many wear a seatbelt while thundering along in a tractor at 35mph?
How many expect young children to do the work of adults to support the farm business? How many have missing safety guards and operate power tools with no protection?
I have been as guilty as anyone and can reflect on multiple “close calls” in which I feel I narrowly escaped death.
From being electrocuted through my own idiocy; while cleaning patently unsafe grain bins at height; from uncovered sweep augurs; from livestock not given the respect – and handling systems – they deserve.
From leaving the seat of a moving combine harvester to take a photo. Luckily the machine was more intelligent than me and shut itself down, much to my surprise.
There are always excuses for the stupid things which happen on farms, but in the end that’s all they are – excuses.
If you, your staff or heaven forbid your children don’t come home at the end of the day, what comfort will be offered to friends and family in saying:
“But we’ve done it like that before; but we just needed to get on; but I didn’t see her”? And what defence will that be in court?