Hazards of farming

Health and safety is a growing issue on our farms, writes Agriculture Correspondent Seán MacConnell

LAST WEEK the annual workplace fatality statistics were released, and showed that Irish farms are in a place all on their own when it comes to this gruesome league table.

In 2007, 11 people lost their lives on farms in the Republic, keeping agriculture at the top of the list of the most dangerous workplaces in the country with the highest fatality rate at 8.3 per 100,000 workers.

Now the carnage on farms in the Republic stands at 10 fatalities, just one short of the total for last year. There have been a further six in Northern Ireland so far this year.

That is very bad news indeed because peak killing time has not yet arrived. The experts know that harvest time is a time of great danger, matched only by holiday time when children are at home and around an environment cluttered with farm machinery, animals and dangerous places such as slurry tanks.

But in recent years a new monster has arrived on the back of the Celtic Tiger, according to Frank Laffey, Teagasc's farm safety specialist.

"Since the arrival of the Celtic Tiger, the number of elderly people, that is people over 65, [working on farms] has been rising, and in recent years 50 per cent of all farm deaths involved farmers over this age," he said.