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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 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…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

How to keep lone workers safe on farm

Working alone is taken for granted in farming, and while it is often necessary, a change of attitude could improve not only safety but also the working culture. Oliver Dale,…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Fire service issues bale storage advice after barn fires

As the warm, dry weather continues, the Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service has issued warnings to farmers after a recent spike in the number of barn fires.…

ARABLE

14 ways to stay safe this harvest 

Harvest is often an intense time for farmers and their families, with a dangerous cocktail of long working hours, large machinery and pressure to meet deadlines.  CXCS health and safety adviser Emily Jones shares some simple steps to…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Health and safety policy: What farmers need to include

There is no denying that farming can be a risky occupation. According to Health and Safety Executive figures, farmers and farmworkers are 20 times more likely to be killed at…

ROAD LEGAL

Trailer safety updates ahead of silage season

As the silage season fast approaches, farmers are urged to make sure trailers are safe and well maintained in line with current legislation. The Tilly Trailer Pass campaign was founded…

Insights

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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…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Farmers Weekly launches campaign to make our industry safer

Growers and livestock producers are dicing with death on a daily basis – with half of all farmers saying they know someone killed in a workplace accident. The stark statistic…

News

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HEALTH AND SAFETY

NAAC head warns of worker fatigue ahead of busy period

The head of the UK’s only organisation that represents agricultural contractors has warned of the risk to life to farmworkers posed by a lack of sleep. Jill Hewitt, the chief…

CRIME

Farmer given suspended sentence for cow trampling incident

A farmer whose cows trampled a dog walker to death and left the man’s wife paralysed from the waist down has been given a six-month suspended jail sentence after pleading…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Farmer charged £41,000 for 'avoidable' hay bale accident

An “easily avoidable” health and safety breach, which resulted in a young farmworker getting seriously injured, has cost a Surrey farming partnership nearly £41,000 in a court fine and costs.…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Kent beef farm fined £12k for safety breaches

A farming business in Kent has been fined £12,000 for multiple, serious health and safety breaches. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said Seymour Stevens Ltd, which operates a beef…

Video

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HARVEST

Video: Farmer shares lessons learnt fighting huge crop fire

Since the early start to harvest at the beginning of July, Twitter has been awash with reports of crop fires across the country, exacerbated by tinder-dry conditions. As the hot,…

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…

Insurer highlights common farm safety pitfalls

South West insurer Cornish Mutual has released a series of videos to help farmers and landowners avoid common health and safety pitfalls. The four videos were released following a recent…

GRASSLAND MANAGEMENT

Video: Silage gas escape sparks health and safety alert

A video on Twitter showing a deadly brown gas escaping from a freshly clamped silage pit has sparked a health and safety warning, after the gas was identified as the…