By John Kushnick, Legal Operations Director, National Accident Helpline

Recent figures show that although farmers account for just 1% of the British workforce, they are involved in 20% of all workplace fatalities. This stark imbalance underlines the urgent need to improve safety standards in the sector, where many face unacceptable, and often preventable, risks while carrying out one of the nation’s most essential jobs.

Recognising the risks

While many occupations involve danger, farming is the only one to see such a high fatality rate. Risks on farms include the operation of heavy machinery, unpredictable hours, and dealing with adverse weather conditions.  These risks are not unique to farming, however, without clear oversight on health and safety governance, they can prove fatal. This is much like the well-recognised dangers of working on power lines.

When working on power lines, individuals undertake complex work at great heights and are surrounded by deadly voltages, and yet power line worker deaths account for less than 1% of the UK total. Despite this, the risks when working on the lines are well established and there are stringent, centrally set, safety protocols to follow. This greatly reduces the risks faced by workers as the dangers are pre-identified and steps can be taken to reduce them, often before work on the pylons has even begun.

Farming offers no such consistency. Livestock can behave unpredictably, the weather can shift in moments, and no two days, sometimes not even two hours, are alike. In such an environment, predicting, managing, and mitigating risk becomes a far greater challenge. Moreover, farming experiences far less health and safety oversight than many other hazardous occupations. The sector is dispersed and largely informal, with most farms employing five or fewer people, if any. Self-employed farmers are not bound by the same health and safety regulations as contracted employees, and the large geographic scale of farms makes audits challenging to carry out.

Despite these obstacles, there is still scope to do more to protect farmers and establish consistent health and safety protocols across the industry

Strategies to safeguard farmers  

Employers in all settings have a duty of care to their workers and must conduct thorough risk assessments to mitigate workplace dangers. The first step is to identify the potential hazards. Farmers should take an audit of the farm, observe how people work, and learn from previous incidents to uncover risks which may be less obvious. Bringing in external consultants can also be useful as they may be able to notice dangers which others have overlooked. It is also important to consider any long-term health risks such as exposure to toxic chemicals which may be prevalent on the farm.

The Farm Safety Code of Practice and the Health and Safety Executive’s webpage on risk assessment are excellent resources for farmers looking to improve the safety of their farm. Additionally, professional consultants and specialist companies are available to provide tailored support for these processes.

Risk assessments should be actively reviewed and updated as new risks emerge. Embedding risk management into daily operations helps farmers not only to mitigate hazards but also to enhance efficiency and avoid the financial and operational costs of accidents, including time lost to employee recovery and disruptions to productivity.  

Other important measures to address the risks in agriculture are prioritising comprehensive training, providing high-quality workwear and equipment, and maintaining constant awareness to identify and mitigate new risks as they arise.   

Final thoughts

Ultimately, there is no single solution when it comes to improving safety on farms, however conducting thorough risk assessments, ensuring proper training, and practicing good maintenance of equipment, risks can be significantly reduced.

However, in any industry, even with well thought out preventative measures in place, accidents can still happen. In such cases, workers should be encouraged to seek compensation for physical, emotional, and financial losses, as well as support for their families in the event of fatalities.