10th annual Farm Safety Week (18th - 22nd July)

Farm Safety Foundation - Yellow Wellies, have been leading on another (tenth!) annual Farm Safety Week between 18th and 22nd July, raising awareness about safe farming practices.

For an industry that employs 1% of the working population in Great Britain, agriculture accounts for 18% of all workplace fatal injuries. In 2021/22 HSE Fatal Injuries in Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing Report, 25 people, including a 9-year old child, loat their lives on farms over the past year. This is why raising awareness of farm safety is so important. 

Agriculture is different from many industries in that it can present hazards to people not actively involved in the industry, such as children and family members living on the farm and visitors, in addition to farm workers. Hazards can also exist for vets, delivery workers and even the emergency medical services personnel as they provide assistance and care to victims of farm incidents.

Thanks to the funding of NFU Mutual, the Farm Safety Foundation have devised and delivered training sessions to over 18,000 young farmers in land-based colleges and universities across the UK and through the young farmers clubs network. Thanks to this, the next generation of farmers are cultivating a better attitude to risk-taking and are starting to drive better safety behaviours in the workplace.

To find out more about the campaign and farm safety statistics, visit the Farm Safety Foundation website.

Farm safety podcast

Last year the Scottish Rural Network, in partnership with Scene and Herd PR, recorded a podcast episode on this very topic. We invited the members of Farm Safety Foundation and Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society to talk about the issues of farm safety and prevention of severe injuries.

Listen to the podcast in full here.