Farm safety First
Farming is one of the most dangerous industries in the world. 9.7 in every 100,000 workers employed on farms die each year. The next most dangerous industry is construction where the number of deaths is around 2.1 per 100,000 workers. Year after year the same accidents are occurring on farms but the industry isn’t learning or evolving.
I n 2005 I was involved in a life changing accident where I became entangled in a PTO shaft and lost my left arm. Since then I have used my story to help educate others in the industry. To try to bring together best practices in the field of accident prevention and discover why farmers are still having farm accidents in their pursuit of feeding the world.
Farmers don’t recognise risk to life in the same way other people do. As an industry they thrive on the risks associated with farming and relish the challenge of working in a dangerous environment. It must also be acknowledged that they have many pressures to deal with in farming, like time, finance and weather to name a few. As farmers they are very much multi-skilled. However, formal health and safety training isn’t one of the skills they possess, leading to a lack of understanding around the subject.
Safety initiatives need to be led by farmers for farmers. Safety also needs to be practical and easy to carry out: farmers don’t have time for complex paper-based systems as the workplace is extremely dynamic. Safe practices need to be embedded in the minds of everyone involved in the business to allow autonomous safe working.
A culture change, which will take time but will have a longer lasting effect on the industry, is needed. To enable a culture shift strong and effective leadership is essential for us, both from our farming leaders and in our own businesses. Farmers who can passionately promote safety should be identified to deliver peer-to-peer training on safe work procedures, and push clear and consistent messaging.
The use of independent auditors should be to help farmers identify risks on the farm to enable change. This could be done by farm assurance inspectors, insurance companies or even other farmers who can bring a fresh set of eyes to the workplace.
Agricultural colleges and universities must work on developing the next generation of safe farmers by integrating safety into every aspect of agricultural education to enable the long term goal of reducing accidents permanently.
Focusing my thoughts
Increasing regulation or penalties will not have a positive effect on farm safety. The disconnect between the regulator and the farmer will only increase if more regulation is enforced. The existing laws are adequate to keep workers safe; however, a lack of knowledge by farmers of existing regulation has rendered these laws ineffective. A mistrust of the regulator is also hindering a working relationship with farmers which could otherwise prove beneficial in reducing accidents.
Strong leadership is needed within the agricultural industry to enable greater progress with safety initiatives. When difficult decisions need to be made our farming leaders, for the greater good of the industry, need to put farm safety ahead of what might be popular with farming members.
Farmers sometimes find it difficult to recognise dangers on the farm, making it difficult to manage the problem. There is need to encourage more training in safe working procedures and then follow the training with continued development to keep farmers up to date with new techniques. This could be carried out in a class room type scenario, trade shows or even through web-based learning.
Agricultural education can and should help with creating a culture shift. We need to be creating a generation of safe farmers who will shape the future of agriculture. Social acceptance is a huge barrier to a shift in culture.They can start the shift at college and university but they must enable that culture to continue once the student arrives in the workplace. We must make safety “sexy”; many farmers don’t take safety seriously for fear of ridicule by their farming peers. A core of influential farmers needs to be empowered to create a “safety is cool” culture, and then the rest of the industry will follow, fearing exclusion by the new social group.
This group of “safe” farmers who are leading the way in safety will also be extremely good farmers, proving that safety won’t hinder farming, but enhance the business. Being a safe farm is also a good indicator that the business is professional and profitable. The “safe” farmers will also help mentor others and facilitate farm visits to help others visualise how safety works in a real life situation.
Safety needs to be practical; if it’s difficult then it won’t get done. As Dr Fogg describes, there are many barriers to change, some are perceived barriers but some are very real. We must keep it simple, low cost and with low physical effort. Farmers have already got a lot to think about day-to-day so any extra safe working practices need to be easily adopted with little cost.
By 2050, global food production must increase by 60%. Innovations for water management are essential in achieving this, Alan Nicol from IWMI highlighted. “For smallholder farming, managing agricultural water availability, access and use is key to success,” he noted. He shared case studies, including solar energy to strengthen access to water for agriculture, increasing availability via rainwater harvesting, improving usage via the wetting front technology, and understanding scale for food security monitoring and hazard risk mapping, as well as index-based flood insurance.
Asked where the next crop of African Billionaires will come from, the President of the African Development Bank, Nigerian Dr Akinwumi Adesina, without batting an eyelid, declared that they will be farmers. And he is not the only person in his class endorsing agriculture as the next frontier. Technology success Strive Masiyiwa, a Zimbabwean, has indicated more than once that if he was to start over, he would go into farming.
Economic empowerment is key in maintaining the mutually beneficial partnership, which has seen KBL pay more than Sh2 billion annually to local barley and sorghum famers. By Eric Kiniti.
By Bitange Ndemo