Farming: A hazardous industry

THE appalling toll of fatalities on Irish farms is a damning comment on the mind-set of an industry that makes hundreds of millions but where people die because a blind eye is turned to safety.

Over the past decade, farm deaths have exceeded 200. Yet the bulk of farmers continue to ignore regulations that could save lives.

In this context, for instance, the attitude of parents who allow their children drive massive tractors must be questioned.

With over 90% of farms failing to comply with legal obligations under the Health and Safety Act, it is patently clear the industry is not adequately policed.

Even though farmers are legally obliged to record a workplace safety statement, less than 10% do so. Flouting the law, many adopt a feckless approach to safety. There is a telling statistic that shows while one-third of all workplace accidents occur in agriculture, the sector accounts for just over 7% of the workforce.

On the eve of Farm Safety Week, starting next Monday, it is alarming to note that farmers have such disregard for the hazardous nature of their work.

Instead of being mindful of the ever-present dangers, they casually put themselves, their employees and members of their own families, at risk every day of the week, heedless of the need for caution when dealing with potentially lethal machinery and dangerous products.

With predictable and depressing regularity, the public has come to expect a litany of farm deaths in the annual safety figures.

Usually, they include tragic instances of children falling into uncovered slurry pits, farmers being gored by supposedly safe animals, or crushed by deadly machinery.

What is particularly deplorable is the fact that over the last ten years 43 children have perished in farming accidents. Indeed, there can be no more graphic illustration of the need for heightened safety on the farm than the annual roll call of child fatalities, a heart rending scenario that tells its own story.

The obvious implication is that in spite of repeated alerts from State agencies like Teagasc, and also by the major farming organisations, including Macra na Feirme which reaches out to younger farmers, such warnings have gone unheard.

Thankfully, the number of child fatalities has declined in recent times but this gives no cause for complacency. The death of one child is still one death too many.

The grim fact remains that the traditionally high-risk sector of agriculture continues to claim a highly disproportionate share of lives relative to the number of people working in the industry.

Throwing money at the problem with a view to enhancing safety is not the answer. Arguably, it requires a sea-change of the mind set of people engaged in farming.

Ironically, while most people in agriculture acknowledge that farmers are extremely lax when it comes to safety, they prefer to point the finger of blame at neighbours rather than see the mote in their own eye.

Tragically, unless attitudes change and farmers show a readiness to adopt a more realistic approach to safety on the farm, the annual death toll will continue.

As one expert put it, farm safety is not a question of money it is a question of attitude.