An international conference on farm safety and farmer health will be held in Ireland later this month.
Teagasc will host the event at its Research and Innovation Centre in Dunsany, Grange, Co. Meath, and at Teagasc Ashtown in Dublin, from August 23 to 25.
The conference is expected to attract researchers who work on farm safety and related issues from the US, Australia, several EU countries, and the UK.
These researchers will deliver some 30 academic papers over the course of the three days.
This research will cover the following three topics:
- Farm safety – from research to practice:
- Policy and culture;
- Farmer well-being.
Participants will see farm safety demonstrations at Teagasc’s facilities at Grange and Ashtown.
They will also meet with Irish policy stakeholders at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s (DAFM’s) facilities at the Backweston state laboratory in Cellbridge, Co. Kildare, which they will also be given a tour of.
Among the researchers participating, three of them will each deliver a keynote presentation.
These are:
- Prof. Julie A. Sorensen, director and research scientist at the Northeast Centre for Occupational Health and Safety in Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing/New York Centre for Agricultural Medicine and Health;
- Prof. Peter Lundqvist, professor of work science at the Department of Agricultural Biosystems and Technology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences;
- Prof. Alison Kennedy, director of the National Centre for Farmer Health, Australia.
These three presentations will focus on understanding why people engage in safe and unsafe practices; the challenges to farmer mental health and well-being; and how these challenges can be met.
Speaking in advance of the conference, Dr. David Meredith, leader of the BeSAFE farm safety behaviours project – which is sponsored by the DAFM – said: “Ireland is at the forefront of undertaking and leading research into farm safety and farmer health, and the conference is an opportunity to showcase issues and approaches that we are currently working on.
“We are also keen to show how this research makes an impact, whether that be on a farm, or supporting policy, or strategy development, by working with farmers, advisors, and policy stakeholders,” he added.
According to Dr. Meredith, the conference will allow those interested in the issue of farm safety or farmer health to “learn from the knowledge and experiences of researchers from across the EU, Australia, and the US”.