Farmers encouraged to attend safety events after thumbs up

Date:

13 September 2011

A new programme of training events is underway to help thousands of farmers get to grips with health and safety in one of Britain's most dangerous industries.

Nearly 8,000 free places are being made available at the Health and Safety Executive's (HSE) Safety and Health Awareness Days (SHADs) over the coming months, with the aim of cutting the number of deaths and injuries in future.

95 per cent of 1,300 farmers surveyed after attending one of last year's safety events, said they would recommend them to other farmers. Around three quarters (73%) said the events had greatly increased their understanding of the potential causes of accidents and the actions they could take to prevent deaths and injuries.

Practical demonstrations will focus on workplace transport, machine safety, working at height, handling livestock, safe lifting, and working with chemicals.

Figures from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) show, on average, between 40 and 50 workers are killed on British farms every year, despite less than 1.5 percent of the population working in the industry.

Graeme Walker, HSE's Head of Agriculture, said:

"Many farmers are self-employed or run small family businesses so we want to make sure they're not putting themselves and their livelihoods at risk with poor health and safety.

"We'll be offering simple tips that won't cost a lot to put into practice and could even help to boost productivity. The free events are also an opportunity to catch-up with other local farmers and share industry knowledge.

"It's an alarming statistic that farmers are ten times for likely than most workers to be killed while at work. I'd encourage them to give up half a day of their time to come along to one of the events."

More details on the Safety and Health Awareness Days, including a list of the dates and locations for this year's confirmed events, are available at http://www.hse.gov.uk/agriculture/shads.htm. Watch this space as more dates are to be added.

Notes to editors

1. The Health and Safety Executive is Britain's national regulator for workplace health and safety. It aims to reduce work-related death, injury and ill health. It does so through research, information and advice; promoting training; new or revised regulations and codes of practice; and working with local authority partners by inspection, investigation and enforcement. www.hse.gov.uk
2. Figures covering the last five years show eight in every 100,000 farmers are killed at work in Great Britain every year, compared to the average figure for workplace deaths of eight in every million.

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