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Know How / Health and safety

Agriculture is one of the most dangerous industries in the UK because of the high level of fatal accidents and life-changing injuries. Learn from the experiences of farmers who have been involved in an accident and read practical advice on how to make working on your farm safer.

Key areas of focus:

  • Preventing accidents such as falls from height
  • How to handle livestock safely
  • Safety around machinery
  • Slurry handling safety
  • Pesticide storage

Dying to Feed You campaign

Case studies

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HEALTH AND SAFETY

Dying to Feed You: Corrine's eye socket was fractured

Welsh farmer’s wife and nurse Corrine Mathias suffered a fractured eye socket after being attacked by a cow.  Watch her tell her story in the video and read the report…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Dying to Feed You: Grace suffered multiple broken bones

Grace Addyman suffered multiple broken bones when she was hit by falling bales at her family farm. She tells us what happened on that day, the difficult surgery that followed…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Dying to Feed You: Beca fractured skull in quad accident

Beca Glyn was herding sheep across the road on her quad bike when she had an accident. Sadly, she wasn't wearing a helmet and the impact resulted in a serious…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Dying to Feed You: Mike Nixon fell 28ft through a shed roof

Mike Nixon fell through a shed roof to clean the guttering. He landed on a concrete scrape passage and sustained a serious spinal cord injury.  It began like a normal…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Dying to Feed You: Rob was attacked by a cow after calving

Rob Lewis was left with a fractured spine after being attacked by a cow while feeding a calf. Here, he tells his story. It’s a day that will be etched…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Dying to Feed You: James was dragged into a potato harvester

James Bannister lost his left arm after being dragged into a potato harvester. After the trauma of being stuck inside the machine for over two hours, he was airlifted to…

Practical advice

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HEALTH AND WELFARE

Fire risk planning - what to consider on a livestock farm

Climate change is driving livestock farmers to consider farm resilience and feed security. But it should also make them think about the increasing challenge from wildfires and the risk to…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Farm building planning: Health and safety obligations

Farmers planning a building project should check their obligations under the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE’s) Construction Design and Management (CDM) Regulations 2015. These govern the way all building projects…

BUSINESS CLINIC

Business Clinic: Can we divert a public footpath?

Whether it’s a legal, tax, insurance, management or land issue, Farmers Weekly’s Business Clinic experts can help. Here, Richie Rees, senior associate in in law firm Thrings’ dispute resolution team,…

BUSINESS

Advice on asbestos rules and responsibilities for farmers

A quarter of a century since the material was banned, asbestos-related diseases remain the greatest cause of work-related deaths in Britain, accounting for some 5,000 lives a year, according to…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Improving farm safety and saving lives

The statistics around farm fatalities and workplace injuries are truly sobering. Agriculture, forestry, and fishing had a fatal injury rate last year which was 21 times higher than the national…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

How to manage less common farm health and safety risks

The fatal incident rate in agriculture over the past five years has on average been 21 times higher than that across all other industries. Incidents involving animals or machinery and…

Insights

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HEALTH AND SAFETY

Farm safety: Is there a level playing field for women?

Farm safety has become a much-discussed topic in recent years, and with good reason. Despite numerous safety campaigns, agriculture statistically remains the nation’s most dangerous industrial occupation. What is perhaps…

SPRAYERS

Options expanded for closed-transfer sprayer filling

Serious concerns about operator and environmental safety when climbing onto sprayers to pour neat chemical into the top of tanks were raised by safety regulators as far back as the…

News

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HEALTH AND SAFETY

Lantra launches new chainsaw safety campaign

Farmers and land-based workers are being urged to treat chainsaws with the seriousness they demand, as Lantra launches a major new safety campaign following a sharp rise in chainsaw-related injuries.…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Fall risk inspections launched across N Irish farms

A month-long inspection campaign has been launched today across farms and construction sites throughout Ireland and Northern Ireland to tackle deaths and injuries caused by falls from height. The Health…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Investigation launched into spate of farm deaths in Scotland

The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in Scotland is launching a new fatal accident inquiry into a number of recent farm deaths, all involving falls from height. In total,…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Slurry mixing warning ahead of closed spreading season

Farmers are being reminded of the dangers of poisonous slurry gas, and the importance of following the slurry mixing code, ahead of the closed period starting on 15 October Just…

Video

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HEALTH AND SAFETY

Dying to Feed You: Corrine's eye socket was fractured

Welsh farmer’s wife and nurse Corrine Mathias suffered a fractured eye socket after being attacked by a cow.  Watch her tell her story in the video and read the report…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Video: Tractor near miss on level crossing

This is the heart-stopping moment a tractor driver cheated death after narrowly avoiding a collision with a train on a level crossing. Dramatic footage has emerged from the cab of…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Dying to Feed You: 12-year-old William Sayers lost his arm

William Sayers was 12 years old when he lost his arm in an accident on the family farm in Northern Ireland. Here, he tells his story. It was an Easter…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Dying to Feed You: James was dragged into a potato harvester

James Bannister lost his left arm after being dragged into a potato harvester. After the trauma of being stuck inside the machine for over two hours, he was airlifted to…