The annual Farm Safety Week campaign launched today with the revelation that 20 agricultural workers lost their lives during the last year and three children died on British and Irish farms in the past month.
The latest statistics from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) make grim reading, but they are an improvement on last year’s figure of 32 deaths.
The charity Farm Safety Foundation says one reason the industry has the poorest safety record of any occupation in the UK is that farmers take risks and see dangers but do nothing to avoid them.
The HSE report indicates the biggest cause of fatalities was farm transport and workers over the age of 55 were disproportionately at risk of death following an incident.
All farm safety agencies across the UK and Ireland will spend this week highlighting dangers and reminding farmers and farm workers to take safety seriously in order to reduce the number of life-changing and life-ending accidents on farms.
It will also focus on recent news reports of farmers texting and filming while behind the wheel.
