Young Farmer Focus: Emily Jones - 'My health and safety placement inspired me to make a difference'

Emily Jones, 24, is a safety adviser with CXCS, based in Herefordshire.

Background

I grew up on a smallholding, but it was my local Young Farmers’ Club which influenced my decision to pursue a career in agriculture. I went on to study Agri-Business at Harper Adams and it was there I became more aware of how high the accident and fatality rates are in agriculture.

I completed my third-year work placement with a health and safety consultancy, which really inspired my desire to make a difference. My final year dissertation, on ‘How to Drive Change and Improve Farm Safety’, received over 1,000 responses from farmers across the UK.

I graduated in 2021 and joined CXCS, a firm of agriculture compliance specialists.

Farm safety

The term ‘health and safety’ is often negatively associated with being an impractical set of rules which involves extra paperwork, expense and red tape.

I prefer to call it ‘farm safety’ and explain it is simply a means to come home safely. It is the steps we take every day to protect ourselves, our families and our businesses from preventable harm. 

I realise that you have ’got to get on’ and it is easy to think ’it will not happen to me’, but it is better to be five minutes longer in this world than a second early in the next. Losing a loved one is devastating enough without the knowledge that the loss could have been avoided – the heartbreaking reality of many farming accidents.

The day-job

Alongside other companies and charitable organisations, we are working hard at CXCS to make a difference, but people are still dying on farms.

It is easy to sometimes feel like nothing is changing, but I take comfort in that, one farm at a time, we are having these conversations and helping individual farmers understand the risks they face and put measures in place to reduce or eliminate these risks. 

Someone once said to me: ’it is a job where you might save someone’s life and never even know’.

Work-life balance

During my four years at Harper, I did not think I would be able to fulfil my farm safety-related career ambitions back at home. Fast-forward almost two years and I have qualified as a safety adviser.

I am working with farmers across the UK and live just three miles from the office on my partner’s farm in Sarnesfield.

I feel as though I have the perfect work-life balance and am constantly driven by the desire to help ensure we all go home safely at the end of the day.