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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 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…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Why farmers should have a health and safety emergency plan

Farming has a poor track record of workplace-related accidents – the industry employs 2% of the UK workforce yet accounts for 20% of workplace fatalities. However, injury and fatality are…

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…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

How to stay safe with cattle as public footfall increases

Lives could be lost and livelihoods jeopardised with more members of the public coming into close contact with farm animals, as the trend for countryside walking continues post-lockdown, say experts.…

News

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NEWS

Tractor driver jailed over fatal crash involving cyclists

A tractor driver who killed a woman cyclist and seriously injured her teenage son was using his mobile phone in the moments before the crash, a court was told. Jonathan…

NEWS

Trainee pilot stops farm fire spreading using What3Words

A trainee pilot from Bedfordshire has been praised for stopping the spread of a field fire, after spotting smoke from a burning combine harvester while up in the air last…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Worrying surge in farm fatalities, HSE data reveals

Twelve people died in farm accidents in Great Britain in spring 2023, according to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). In total, there were 27 fatalities across all industries from…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Pto guards: High costs call farm safety into question

Cambridgeshire farmer Tom Martin has called upon agricultural machinery manufacturers to commit to making zero profit on replacement pto guards, and to sell the life and limb saving equipment to…

Video

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HEALTH AND SAFETY

Video: Young farmer cheats death in quad bike accident

A young farmer has told how she cheated death in a quad bike accident which left her with a fractured skull, neck injuries and major bruising. Beca Glyn, 26, was…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Video: Tractor crashes into 130kV electricity pylon

A farmworker had a lucky escape after his tractor hit a National Grid electricity pylon – demolishing the structure and causing a major power outage. Emergency services were called to…

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Video: Tractor near miss on level crossing

This is the heart-stopping moment a tractor driver cheated death after narrowly avoiding a collision with a train on a level crossing. Dramatic footage has emerged from the cab of…

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,…