In this podcast, we discuss HSE’s agriculture campaign Your Farm Your Future, focusing on the risks of transport on farms with moving vehicles being are the highest cause of deaths in British farming.

Adrian Hodkinson, Agriculture Sector Lead, at HSE and Brian Rees, Farmer and Safety Trainer discuss some of the most common issues and what farmers can do to make small changes to protect them, their families and workers.

----more----For more information on the campaign visit Work Right Agriculture - Work Right to keep Britain safe 

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Mick Ord (Host): If I were to ask you which sector of British industry was responsible for the highest rate of deaths and injuries per 100,000 workers, what would your answer? May the construction sector? No, it's the agriculture sector. My name's Mick Ord, and I'm here today on this HSE podcast to introduce you to some guest experts on the subject of safety in the agriculture sector.

HSE has just launched its Work Right Agriculture campaign to encourage everyone who works on the farm to take a little time out and think about how they could improve safety. My word is it needed. Over the past five years, there have been 161 fatal incidents on our farms and 11,000, yes, 11,000 injuries each year. We want to make 2023 a much safer year on our farms, and you can play your part by really engaging with the campaign, looking closely at the way in which you work, and thinking about how you can make it safer for everyone. Joining me today are two people who'll be able to help you to do that.

Adrian Hodgkinson is the head of HSE'S Agriculture sector and a Principal Inspector. He has many years’ experience and works with all the main agricultural organisations to improve the lives of everyone on farming. Adrian, welcome to the podcast.

Adrian Hodkinson: Good afternoon, Mick. Really good to be speaking with you.

Mick Ord (Host): And Brian Rees is a farmer in mid Wales and has been a safety instructor for nearly 40 years. Brian keeps sheep and hens on his farm and is involved in the Wales Farm Safety Partnership. Hi Brian.

Brian Rees: Hello. Nice to be here.

Mick Ord (Host): Adrian, can I start with you? Can we get down to the specifics straightaway? HSE has launched the Work Right Agriculture campaign to try to get those worrying stats down.

Do you know what the main causes appear to be?

Adrian Hodkinson: In agriculture workplace transport and moving vehicles are the biggest cause of fatal accidents in farming, people being killed in farming. And they account for a huge amount of the major injuries that we also see.

Mick Ord (Host): As you say, you've split the campaign into three main sections. Talk to us, if you will, about the first bit: Safe Farms. What areas are you targeting here?

Adrian Hodkinson: When we are talking about safe vehicle movements, we're talking about three things, really. It's the Safe Farm, having a Safe Environment, having a Safe Driver, and also a Safe Vehicle. So, in relation to having a safe farm, it's really about the layout of the farm, thinking about how you're segregating people from machinery.

Really, really crucial to keep people – pedestrians – away from moving machines. It's a good idea to maybe have a marked route where you've got frequent crossings across a yard, put up barriers or posts when you're opening a barn door and walking out into the yard just to make you stop and think and look around for vehicles, putting up signs, warning people that this is where people are going to be walking.

Having mirrors on the corners of building so you can see round and see what's coming. Maybe improving the lighting. Lighting's got a lot better nowadays with LED and all the rest of it, and you can really improve the lighting really effectively on farms and, um, making sure people are visible. At night, or when it's getting dusky, make sure you're wearing that high visibility clothing so you can be seen by drivers coming onto the farm or into the farm yard.

Mick Ord (Host): And that's true in the mornings as well. A lot of farmers starting very early , and it's quite often very dark in the mornings. It still is now, isn't it?

Adrian Hodkinson: Absolutely, Mick. Yeah. Well, when I say the evenings, I mean anytime when it's getting dusky and dark or just starting to be light in the mornings. So important to have good lighting, um, and make sure people can be seen.

Mick Ord (Host): Now you mentioned signage there and that's one of the things when I've been on farms, sometimes something will just appear around the corner, won't it? You know? So, I guess you would say the more signage, the better?

Adrian Hodkinson: Well, you don't want to go overboard, but having signs up just before, before you're approaching a busy area where people might be near the farmhouse or where children might be present, just to slow the driver down and think about what might be just around that corner, just putting up where it's needed. It really makes a difference.

Mick Ord (Host): Now, as a Principal Inspector, you've obviously visited farms of all sizes over the years. Generally, what would you say is the standard, like in terms of safe farms?

Adrian Hodkinson: Well, all farms are different. They do a fantastic job bringing in the food this country needs. We see a wide variety of different standards, so we, we see the huge farms that are really big commercial enterprises, and you get really good traffic arrangements in those sorts of places.

And then you get the smaller farm might be one man and his wife and small family running a smaller farm. And the standards can be equally as good, but they're much simpler usually. But it's so important to make sure that when people are coming on with deliveries, when vehicles are moving around in a hurry, at silaging time or at harvest time, that um, people are kept away from all that moving activity.

Mick Ord (Host): And you've got lots of walkers and hikers, haven't you? Everywhere. And it's quite easy, and I've done it myself to wander onto a bit of land that's private land, not knowing it necessarily, and all of a sudden you're on a private farm.

Adrian Hodkinson: Yeah, and we're coming up to Easter holidays, so it's a really good point, Mick. We're coming up to Easter holidays. There'll be a lot more people out enjoying the, the great British countryside. There will be more people around. Um, some parts of the country are much busier than others. If you're in the Peak District or in South Wales, uh, in the Brecon Beacons or wherever it might be, there's going to be lots and lots of people around at that time of year. So, looking after members of the public and keeping them away from moving vehicles is a really, really good point.

Mick Ord (Host): Now, Brian Rees, as I mentioned before, in addition to running your own farm and being a safety inspector for 40 years or so, you're also involved in the Wales Farms Safety Partnership. Have you got a real life example from one of the farms that you visited where there's been an accident as a result of poor safety procedure?

Brian Rees: I could keep you going for two hours on these. Yeah, it's amazing. You may go into a farm to do some training and you, if it's a lift truck course, you're usually there a couple of days and some take it very seriously and some almost consider it, you know, proud of it. I know one friend of mine, a family who know very well, the son rolled a quad on an open hill and it rolled for about 150 meters and smashed up down by the side of the main road. That really sort of, uh, gets to me a little bit, a lot of accidents on farms and there's a variety of reasons really. Farmers are rushing around. When a farmer needs something that needs doing, they only have one thing on their mind, and that's to get that job done and they don't necessarily think of what's happening around them.

A very good friend of mine, two years to now, he was calving. And one morning he went into his shed, the cow had calved, and there she was in the pen. They were lambing as well. So, they were busy doing other things. He went back by this cow in about an hour's time. The calf was looking a little bit hollow and he thought it hadn't sucked.

So he gets his wife when they get a jug of water, and you know when a calf hasn't sucked you have to put a tube down his throat into his stomach to get him going. So, he went into the cow, and she was fine. He actually milked about a couple of litres of colostrum off the cow, and he just turned his back on the cow and he caught hold of the calf and he was just opening his mouth, and the calf makes a little, "urrrghh" sort of sound and this cow just went berserk! Now his wife was facing the cow. She could see what happened. So, she tried to throw the jug of milk that she was holding at the cow, and she managed to escape. But Rob got really, she really mangled him. Now then, he's still alive, and I keep telling him regularly, he's very lucky to be alive. The son appeared from somewhere fairly quickly and he's a fairly big lad, and he literally manhandled this cow off him. It was amazing. Now, Rob used to be six foot two, he's now six foot and half an inch, because it smashed one complete vertebrae out of his back and they pinned him all back together. He's okay. But uh, you speak to him on a cold morning and he can hardly move, you know.

And that's just an example where it could have been cured so simply, you know, We actually filmed Rob on the farm and although his system was in place really, he had really quite good calving pens, the secret is you never get between the calf and the cow. Whatever you're doing, you've got to always be behind the barrier. Little things like