Hogan’s farm safety idea meets frosty reception

The ICMSA and the ICSA have condemned a suggestion by EU Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan that EU farm payments might be cut where farms don’t meet farm safety standards.

Patrick Rohan, ICMSA’s farm and rural affairs chairman, said adding farm safety to the list of cross-compliance requirements would add pressure on farmers at a time when pressures are already building at a rapid rate.

“Rather than threatening to penalise farmers, schemes such as the Farm Safety Scheme are a much more progressive method of helping to improve farm safety. The commissioner could examine an addition to the new GLAS scheme whereby farmers would be incentivised to carry out additional farm safety measures on their farms,” he said.

ICSA president Patrick Kent, said: “Many farm accidents occur not as a result of obviously dangerous facilities but due to all kinds of human error and animal unpredictability.

“Accidents on farms happen because the returns from farming simply do not allow for more than one person to work on most farms and farmers are under immense pressure to get work done.”