Irish Grain Growers’ Group (IGGG) chair, Bobby Miller, has emphasised that staying safe must always be a priority for farmers.
He reaffirmed this view while responding to last weekend’s news of a €100/ha support payment for the tillage sector.
However, the fact that he could still take time to reflect on the welfare of all other farmers says lots about a person’s character.
The need to remind farmers to prioritise their own health and safety at this time of the year is obvious, and of course, ensuring the health and safety of others, as farmers go about their work, is equally important.
Assuming a few good days of weather do come over the next week or so, it will quickly translate into a frenzy of activity at farm level, all focused on getting first cut silage made in double quick time.
The associated health and safety hazards are both numerous and very real.
Modern machinery items are very efficient pieces of kit, which are also inherently dangerous. The tractor of today can be easily compared with a racehorse – very quick at what it does, while making little or no noise in the process.
They can scoot in and out of buildings in an almost effortless manner. Meanwhile, bystanders have very little warning of what’s going on around them.
Staying safe
Children and young teenagers must be continually advised of the dangers associated with modern farm machinery, buildings and animals.
They have no real sense of what health and safety really means. Young children cannot be expected to ‘think safe’ every time they are allowed out of the farm house.
Therefore, it’s up to adults to ensure that they do this thinking on their behalf. One of the most effective ways of achieving this, is to make sure that there are no children close at hand, when heavy machinery is brought into use.
It takes a few short seconds to check on the whereabouts of children once any particular job of work is about to be undertaken, and it’s time well spent.
Farmers and contractors must also force themselves to slow down if they are carrying out work with children in the vicinity.
Again, it’s those extra few seconds that such an approach provides which will make all the difference when it comes to avoiding a farm tragedy.
There seems to be a growing trend for modern tractors and machinery to be driven at close enough to full throttle, even in the confined space of a farm yard.
Seemingly, it has all to do with a ‘macho’ image and the perceived need to get maximum performance from a piece of kit at all times.
This is total folly. What we need, is for everyone to slow down and give a second thought to what they are actually doing.