Harvest time warning for farmers

The dangers to lone workers working in agriculture, rural and particularly farm workers has been a subject covered extensively by LookOut call News over past issues and with good cause, agriculture has one of the worst occupational safety records of any industry, with lone workers in particular often involved. Harvest time has been identified as a particularly dangerous time in the past, which is why the HSE is now urging all farmers to take care as harvest gets underway. In the past five years, 82 workers suffered fatal injuries between July and October, with deaths during these four months accounting for almost half of all deaths in agriculture since 2004/05. The warning comes as HSE gears up to begin the next phase in its campaign to raise awareness of the dangers in agriculture in a bid to reduce death and injury. The 'Make the promise. Come home safe' campaign, which launched in November 2008, generated almost 7000 supportive responses from farmers.

According to HSE's head of safety for agriculture, Alan Plom, farm work is one of the UK's most dangerous ways to make a living and never is this more evident than during harvest when farmers are working to immense time pressures. “There is always the temptation to cut corners when it comes to safety and so our message to farmers is to stop and think. Stopping a machine and making sure it comes to a standstill costs nothing more than a few seconds of time. Those seconds may prevent an injury that lasts a life time”.

For a safer harvest season the HSE suggests that  farmers can take some simple measures as follows to reduce the risks of personal injury.

• One in eight handbrakes on tractors are defective. They are easy to check and generally simple to adjust. It is best done now before the harvest period reaches its peak.
• Before you attempt to clear a blockage on a machine make sure it is brought to a complete stop, the handbrake applied and the engine shut off - every time.
• Check that the guards covering dangerous parts of machinery like chains and sprockets, vee belts and pulley drives are in place on all your machines, including augers and graders.
• Deaths and injuries happen when people are rushing to get the job done and trying to make up time after bad weather conditions or breakdowns. Take a few seconds before you act.
   

For more general information visit www.hse.gov.uk/agriculture