Farm Focus with FBD ... Injured farmer confident his ideas can help others survive farm ‘danger zone’
Today’s farmers all played in the yard as youngsters. Now they know how dangerous a place it can be, writes
FARMING is sometimes compared to the construction industry, when figures for workplace injuries and fatalities are bandied about.
But the two industries are worlds apart, in the view of North Cork dairy farmer Liam O’Keeffe.
Liam was attacked and badly injured by a bull on his farm a little over ten years ago. He still farms today, and is now a strong advocate for safety on farms.
“Farmers work hard, and we work long hours. There can be little or no break from it. If you put the construction industry on a seven-day week, without holidays, without the opportunity to avail of sick days, accidents would also soar,” Liam says.
“For many farmers, there are no sick days, no holidays. Some take Sundays off, others don’t.
“If you get up in the morning and are not feeling the best, you still soldier on. If you have a hard day of work ahead, you just get on with it. And in such circumstances, you will undoubtedly take short cuts. Short cuts that can certainly be a contributing factor for injury or fatalities, in my view.
“For many in farming these days, there can also be financial stress. If you are in a job and work a 40-hour week, you know how much you will be getting at the end of the week. A farmer never knows.”
Through modernisation and serious expansion, our farms have become “danger zones” Liam says.
“A place where children once played is no longer a playground. When we were growing up, we all played in the yard. These are different times. And this always needs to be remembered.”
Liam O’Keeffe farms near the village of Ballydesmond, near the Cork-Kerry border.
He’s married to Sinead and has four children. These days, he milks 90 cows; and works with Munster AI; he is also involved in an agri-business.
He is an experienced farmer who loves his life on the land. But most important of all, Liam knows only too well how quickly it can all be taken from you, freely admitting that after the bull attack. he’s “lucky to be alive”.
“I remember the date very well, it was the 5th of June, 2007. I was going at silage for the day, and was repairing a mower in the yard. Normally I don’t have help, 99% of the time I work on my own.
“However, that morning I was busy, so I had a guy milking the cows. He had very poor English. It was in the middle of the boom. It was hard to get help at the time. I warned him to be careful of the bull. I would always have been conscious of the danger of bulls.
“I even had a sign up in the yard, saying beware of the bull. It’s funny really, before the bull attacked me, I was always afraid that the bull would attack someone else.”
“The man helping me had come from Poland, where they had only a couple of cows on his home farm. So, I was conscious that he didn’t have much experience with bulls.
“I had everything lined up for him to leave the cows out into a paddock after milking.
“After a while, I noticed the cows had been milked for some time, but the bull had been left in the yard, on his own. "Normally, I’d have let him go through with the cows, so that he would have company. I was about to head to Cork for a spare part for the mower, but before I left, I decided to move the bull myself. I picked up a dung fork and used this to catch the bull’s chain.
“As I led him along, I was thinking that I might leave in a different bull with the cows for a spell. The usual thoughts, I suppose, that can occupy the mind of any farmer.
“And I suppose, while I was thinking in my own mind of what I’d do with him, he was thinking about what he’d do with me. Before I knew it, he had me thrown up against the wall.
“He struck me in the lower back. One puck and I was floored. Then he just kept coming at me. When a bull is pucking you with his head, he is moving very quickly up and down, there is nothing you can do. He had me in a corner, I saw no escape.
“I saw the coffin. He pucked me five or six times, and then he tried to get me again, by standing on me.
“It was then I had a moment to do something. I spotted the chain was hanging from his nose. I caught it and, in desperation, started to hit him.
“He moved back just a little. This was it for me, I staggered to my feet and ran about 20 paces to where a straw bale was. I threw myself behind it.
“The only thing saving me from the bull was a cord of baling twine running across the yard. When a bull attacks, he becomes extremely wild afterwards. The bull was now roaring, with his tongue out.
“I never saw a bull behave like this before. I think their mind changes. I had my mobile on me, and rang for help. I rang the local shop, nearby in Ballydesmond, a few locals were there, and came to my help.”
The force of the attack left Liam with a broken pelvis, and the coccyx bone that makes up the bottom portion of the spine snapped. Liam had severe bruising from the back of his knee to the top of his neck. He needed bowel reconstruction, and he had wounds that needed dressing for two years.
In all, he’s had 11 operations since the attack, and has been in and out of hospital, with internal abscesses having developed over the years, the last of which occurred in 2017. Initially spending 12 weeks in hospital, Liam had to learn to walk again.
“Funny enough, the hardest and most painful thing for me to do since the accident is to sit down. Fortunately for me, it’s not a thing I do too often.”
Life goes on for Liam since the attack, he still farms and still keeps a bull on the farm.
“I keep a Friesian bull now for two seasons. That’s it, regardless of the bull’s temperament. There is no such thing, in my opinion, as a quiet bull. Once two seasons are gone, the Friesian is gone.
“If the bull had hit me in the stomach as opposed to my back, I wouldn’t have survived. If I had been older and not in the physical shape I was in at the time, I wouldn’t have survived.
“I’ve been around bulls all my life. I just never thought I’d be the one to get caught.”
Recovery and inspiration
After recovering from his accident, Liam set about trying to identify things around the farm that put farmers under pressure.
With his brother, Ger, and Phil Miesle, a technology enthusiast, they formed a company called Agrify Solutions, to develop and manufacture products that help cut out some of the work stress for farmers.
“Farmers now invariably work on their own. Working with Munster AI, I visit 100 or more farms every year and rarely will I see anyone but the farmer.
“So, anything we can create that will reduce the workload on the farmer can only be a good thing”, says Liam.
“We formed the business last summer, and our first product to market was called Tyre2Tyre. With this device, we offer a solution to the problem of turning up for a farming job only to discover a slow puncture has left a flat wheel on some piece of farm equipment. Finding a slow puncture can be a right pain in the backside, particularly if you are caught in a field or even by the side of the road.
“With our tyre2tyre product, you can take air from a good tyre or a spare tyre and transfer it to the one in need of inflating.
“This will give you the chance to get back home, to the yard, or to wherever you might want to go to get the slow puncture repaired.
“For younger, inexperienced drivers, and perhaps older drivers, who might be unable to change a tyre at the side of a busy road, our product could be invaluable.
“It can be used both on agricultural machinery or on cars or jeeps, any tyre really with a standard valve.
“We launched this product at the Ploughing Championships back in September, and it won the silver prize for innovation at the Dairy Show in Millstreet at the end of 2017.
“At the moment we are working on a tail-painting device for heat detection in dairy cows. The tail-painter can be operated from the pit of the parlour, thus reducing the need to run cows into the crush to tail-paint, which of course would free up a farmer’s time, as you have one less job to do.
"We are currently in the product testing phase, and targeting to be ready to launch this product in late 2018”
Antibiotic management in milk is also a problem the team at Agrify Solutions are working to solve.
“I know what kind of a nightmare this can prove to be. A farmer could easily have €4,000 or €5,000 of milk in a tank destroyed over a simple error. One split second of forgetfulness can prove to be very costly.
“And in a year with low milk prices, a discovery of antibiotic residue in one round of your milk could take up to 30% off your profit for the whole year.
“Our product would prevent any antibiotic contamination of milk.
“Such preventative devices are already there in other businesses, so why not in farming?
“Our main aim in Agrify Solutions is in reducing the stress bank in farmers lives.
“And by trying to reduce the stress, hopefully we will reduce farm accidents.”
