HEALTH AND SAFETY IS TOP FAMILY PRIORITY…
HEALTH AND SAFETY IS TOP FAMILY PRIORITY…
JSR Farming reckons its Britains biggest family farming
business. With 200 employees, it takes a professional
attitude to safety too, as Nigel Burnham explains
BRITAINS biggest family farming business, the JSR Farming Group, of Southburn, East Yorks, has regarded the health and safety of its workforce as paramount for many years.
Founded by John Rymer in 1957, the group – which has an annual turnover of over £15m and employs 200 people – was the first farming company to be recognised as an Investor in People and holds two National Training Awards.
Originally renowned for its simple pigs, peas and potatoes formula, the companys three divisions now straddle 6000ha (14,800 acres) of land at over 20 sites nationwide.
Still heavily involved in pig production, the company is also a leading name in pig genetics while its arable division concentrates on high yielding wheat, sugar beet, potatoes and onions – and is the UKs biggest grower of vining peas.
JSRs health and safety policies were formulated by one of its directors until the mid-1990s when the company realised that a specialist position needed to be created and appointed its first health and safety officer.
The second and current incumbent, Hazel Preece, took up her post two years ago. She is a University of Newcastle upon Tyne graduate in agriculture and business management and also has a National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health (NEBOSH) certificate.
Mrs Preece, 25, has a wide-ranging brief planning company policy on health and safety not just in relation to agricultural machinery but every aspect of the workforces dealings with JSRs 7000 sows and 825 cattle.
Health and safety
"Since I started here we have begun to look at health and safety systematically," she says. "One of the things weve done is to set up our own JSR health and safety at work course so that all our employees now have a fully documented training record."
The course has now been running for a year and many of JSRs workers have already received health and safety training. The companys aim is that all of them will have been trained during the course of the next year.
"Everyone whos had the training gets a post-course assessment sheet, which is recorded on their training record, and many employees will also be issued with a certificate to prove theyve been trained in that way," says Mrs Preece. "But besides this particular course there are quite a number of staff whove had more specialist health and safety training."
Mrs Preece adds that JSR has a good safety record with no fatalities or serious accidents. "I think our approach to health and safety has already paid dividends," she says. "We have a lot of harvesting machinery which is all potentially very dangerous and their operators have to be constantly vigilant.
"It isnt just a question of workers being careful when they are, for instance, maintaining machines, but also that they are aware of the potential dangers of one-off, freak accidents and do their best to safeguard against them.
"Its my job to get this kind of awareness out there to our farms and all our employees, not just to managers but to filter it right down the chain to the workforce.
"I think weve made a lot of progress here at JSR. As were raising awareness through training and placing more emphasis on health and safety, through annual inspections for instance, we hope we are also empowering the workforce as well as the managers to make good day-to-day decisions about health and safety issues.
Unsafe equipment
"We dont want anyone to use equipment where they feel its unsafe and so we want people to have the confidence to say no if they find a fault or problem with something. We also want to improve the communication process as well so that problems get addressed and resolved as soon as possible."
JSR will be highlighting a number of health and safety issues during European Health and Safety Week. "We recently had a purge on road safety and well be doing a lot of internal things during the week," says Mrs Preece. "Last year I compiled a health and safety quiz, which were doing again this year. And well also be focusing on back pain and back injuries and suggesting ways we can minimise this problem within JSR." *
Above: Hazel Preece became JSR Farming Groups second health and safety officer two years ago. The group employs 200 people. Top: One of JSRs staff mends a gate. All staff are given full safety training.