COSHH essentials for farmers

This series of information sheets will help farmers to comply with their duties under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (as amended) to control exposure to agricultural dusts and protect workers' health.

Agricultural dusts include grain and plant dusts, fungal spores, animal dander, bacteria and endotoxins. These can all cause diseases such as asthma, bronchitis and farmer's lung.

The sheets describe good practice for controlling dust exposure when carrying out a range of common agricultural tasks.

Grain dust has a workplace exposure limit (WEL) of 10mg/m3 (based on an 8-hour time weighted average) but exposure needs to be kept as low as reasonably practicable below this limit. There are no exposure limits for the other hazardous dusts covered by the sheets but as a general rule exposure should be kept as low as reasonably practicable.

The advice does not cover the use of pesticides. Follow the instructions on the product label.

The COSHH essentials series of information sheets will help people in the agriculture industry to comply with their duties under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (as amended) to control exposure to agricultural dusts and protect workers' health.