NFU to spearhead farm safety campaign

Health and Safety Executive chairman Judith Hackitt presented the NFU council with some shocking statistics on the injury and death toll within the industry.

Out of, on average, 200 deaths a year incurred across British industry, 50 occur on farms. While other sectors, such as construction and quarrying, have made huge strides to improve safety levels over the past decade, farming has made no improvement.

Farming is also the ‘worse sector by far’ for under-reporting serious injury, Ms Hackitt said.

She said, while HSE had been running a farm safety campaign, real change could only be driven by the industry itself. She urged the NFU to take a lead in driving the message home.

“The situation is not acceptable. Things are not getting better. But any intervention by us has to be sustained by leadership from within. That is not happening at the moment, so am I asking you to take the lead here,” she told NFU council.

NFU head of policy services Andrew Clark proposed that the NFU should lead an awareness campaign, including an industry summit in September that brings together the entire industry and wider supply chain.

The NFU council was supportive of the initiative and thanked Ms Hackitt for drawing attention to the issue.

NFU president Peter Kendall described the presentation as a ‘chilling and timely reminder’ for farmers ahead of a busy period and indicated he was keen to press ahead with the campaign as quickly as possible.

He said: “”The fact that NFU Council rarely receives presentations from external speakers reflects just how seriously our members take the health and safety of their staff and families when they work on farm.

“The NFU notes the latest workplace fatality statistics with considerable sadness as there is a tragic story that sits behind each one of the numbers. Any fatal accident or serious injury has a devastating impact on the families and businesses involved.

“In the coming months we will establish an industry coalition with our partners and through a concerted effort will look to spread the health and safety message.

“Farmers, growers and their staff will be working long hours this summer, often alone. We’ve already started to remind our members to take care but as harvest gets underway, we will step this up and continue to support the HSE efforts to minimise farm deaths especially through the Come Home Safe campaign.”

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