I know I have written about farm safety a number of times within this little section I have the opportunity to fill every fortnight, but sit tight because I’m about to talk about it some more.
It’s Farm Safety Week, led by the Farm Safety Foundation, and it is something I’m extremely passionate about all year round, not just this week.
There were 41 farming fatalities within the last year, almost double the year before.
Of these, five were in the North West, compared with three in the previous 12 months.
Two were children and seven were members of the public.
Agriculture has the worst rate of fatal injury in workers of all the main industry sectors, with the annual average rate over the last five years being around 20 times as high as the all-industry rate. Let these facts sink in for a moment.
I thought this year would be different.
As an industry we have pushed farm safety so much over the last couple of years, I genuinely believe we are taking on more accountability and are also encouraging each other to think about health and safety so much more
I thought this would be the catalyst for change we needed, and act as a reminder to us all that we are not invincible — a reminder that so often we dice with death as we presume we will walk away fine because, well, “I’ve done this 100 times before”.
Instead of a positive change we have seen double the amount of fatalities alone — 41 lives lost within the last year, 41 families broken, countless numbers of friends with one less person to talk to, and communities with a now unrepairable hole.
How many lives have to be lost in order for our industry to take a serious look in the mirror and decide enough is enough?
Please don’t take my bluntness as a lack of understanding for the pressures in our farming lives that often lead to these fatalities.
We all know how easy it is to quickly — and unsafely — do a job because there is the list of never ending tasks and not enough time in the day, or we’ve worked a ridiculous amount of hours already and we’re shattered, or our mental health is taking a beating and clouding our judgement.
We work in one of the most mentally and physically demanding industries there is, what is expected of us is often impractical and unfeasible. Throw in COVID-19 and the last 18 months have been unlike any other time for a lot of people.
However, we can’t let these be excuses for not having health and safety measures in place and for not implementing them on a day to day basis around our farms.
Of course accidents still happen, that is inevitable, but health and safety can be the difference between life and death, it can prevent limps, it can stop devastation from knocking at your door.
We are testament to this here on our farm when my dad flipped the quad bike and walked away mark free thanks to the bike helmet and our dog safety box on the back. Without these two health and safety measures in place I am sure the outcome would have been very different.
We subconsciously make risk assessments every single day, from deciding if our cup of tea is still too hot to drink, or putting our seatbelt on in the car, to looking both ways before we cross the road.
We wouldn’t risk drinking a scalding hot cup of tea, so why are we taking more extreme risks at work every day?
Remember, you are your farm’s biggest asset, and you are so much more to your loved ones.
Prioritise safety, think of the risks and act appropriately. You deserve to come home safely every night.
