Farm safety message will endure as farmers bring in the harvest

The week highlighted some of the key challenges farmers and farm workers face every day and put a spotlight on the dangers of ignoring near misses, writes farmer Mark Meadows who represents Nottinghamshire farmers as NFU Midlands regional board vice chair.

With a big summer ahead bringing in the harvest, it reminded us that while we cannot eliminate risk completely we can minimise it and learn from every near miss to improve our working practices.

The 2024 campaign marked 10 years of the Farm Safety Foundation (Yellow Wellies), a charity set up by rural insurer NFU Mutual to raise awareness of, and challenge attitudes to farm safety and poor mental health in the industry.

The unpredictable aspects of farming, such as livestock and weather, together with long hours and working alone, mean that staying safe can be challenging but we must find ways to reduce the number of accidents on farm.

One accident on farm is one too many.

Every fatality and serious injury has a devastating impact on those families and businesses involved and while we as farmers are making important changes all year we need to inspire and learn from each other, to protect our businesses and, ultimately, to protect ourselves.

If we’re serious about making long term improvements to farming’s safety record then we need to recognise potential issues, even if we have done a job a hundred times before.

By sharing our own experiences, ideas and examples of tried and tested safety measures we can provide each other with solutions to a problem which won’t go away on its own.

The first Farm Safety Week set out to raise awareness of the importance of safety in agriculture and trigger the discussion around changing the safety culture in farming and this conversation is still as important as ever.

Change can only be achieved if every person involved in farming puts safety at the forefront of everything they do.

We all have a role to pay – let’s start making a difference.