A mentoring programme on farm safety, similar to that piloted in the past by Irish Rural Link, should be funded to roll out nationally, according to Louise Lennon, Policy and Communications Officer, Irish Rural Link.
Her call comes in the wake of a new report from the ESRI which revealed that farming is the occupation with the highest risk of fatalities in the country.
Lennon said that Irish Rural Link’s pilot mentoring programme on farm safety in the midlands, which ran in recent years, was successful.
“It involved peer-mentoring where the mentors would go onto a number of farms and suggest changes that could be made to promote safety, in a subtle way.
“It was less daunting for farmers to have someone they knew go onto their farms and give advice,” she said.
The mentoring initiative worked very well. There was a reduction in farm accidents in the midlands at the time.
“However, unfortunately funding ran out. We would like to see funding made available for a similar mentoring initiative throughout the country again,” Lennon said.
On the labour shortage problem, Lennon said the difficulty in sourcing casual labour is a key concern.
“Sons or daughters may have no interest in farming, and move away to take up other jobs. Emigration is another drain.
“It can be hard for farmers to compete on pay with other sectors and they can end up working long days on their own,” she said.
However, with agricultural science increasing in popularity in post-primary schools, seasonal jobs in farming should be promoted to Transition Year students and students seeking summer or part-time work, Lennon said.
Meanwhile, an author of the ESRI report ‘Risk Taking and Accidents on Irish Farms’ has expressed surprise at the impact working alone has on the risk of farm accidents.
Dorothy Watson, ERSI Associate Research Professor, said that usually when people think of the risks associated with farm accidents, it’s working with machinery and animals and being in a hurry that comes to mind.
However, the risks posed by farmers tackling difficult jobs on their own are significant, said Watson.
Larger farmers were less likely to take risks in tackling challenging jobs without help. The odds were roughly one-third lower on the largest than on the smallest farms.
Watson said the researchers had not expected that not getting help would be strongly associated with both accidents and near-misses involving the farmer.
“It’s perfectly obvious when we look at it but we didn’t expect it from the outset because the whole health and safety issue is so much focused on machinery.”
She said that with farm families less involved in the running of farms now that adult children are more likely to move away, and with partners frequently working off-farm, many farmers are left to tackle difficult jobs on their own.
The availability of help, particularly on a casual basis, is an important issue, said Watson. “That may become more difficult with the improvement in the economy.
“We now know that the availability of help is crucial to farmers. We need to look at what can be done to ensure they can get that extra help when they need it,” said Watson.
“Our main role is to get the information out there and draw out the implications for policy.”
Only half of the farmers who had experienced an accident reported changing something on the farm. Watson said they didn’t have information on why changes weren’t made by half of the farmers who had experienced an accident on their farms.
“Was it because making the change was too difficult or too expensive, or there was no obvious way to prevent the type of event that occurred? Or was it because the farmer felt that the particular accident was not likely to happen again?
“Unfortunately we can’t answer that from current research.
“What we do know is that farmers continue to take risks and that the consequences can be devastating for them and those that care about them,” said Watson.