HSE Takes Safety Message To Great Yorkshire Show

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is underlining its commitment to improving health and safety in agriculture – one of the UK’s most dangerous industries – by exhibiting at the Great Yorkshire Show in Harrogate (14-16 July).

Experts will use the showpiece event to forge greater links with the region’s farming community. They will be on hand to address individual safety concerns and offer practical guidance and advice to help prevent death, injury and ill health.

The Great Yorkshire Show comes just weeks after HSE released statistics suggesting that working in agriculture is the most dangerous way to make a living.
Headline figures for 2008/09 indicate that 26 workers died in the sector, with a rate of 5.7 fatal injuries per 100,000 workers – higher than even construction or manufacturing.

Visitors to the HSE stand will be able to collect copies of the latest edition of Farmwise – a free, comprehensive guide to managing health and safety in agriculture.
It covers such high risk activities including the use of farm vehicles, falls from height and being struck by moving or falling objects.

Judith Donovan, the Agriculture Champion on HSE’s Board, will be attending on 16 July to help spread the message about the important work of HSE in the sector:
Judith is a high-profile Yorkshire business woman and a member of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society:
“Though these latest figures suggest that fatal injuries to farm workers are at an all time low there’s no getting away from the fact that there is still somebody dying needlessly every two weeks.

“A fatal or serious accident can not only destroy families it can also ruin the farm as a business, threatening a livelihood that has often been passed down through the generations.
“We’re visiting events like the Great Yorkshire Show to encourage farmers to
talk to us and work with us to make sure this doesn’t happen.

“As a keen member of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society and a resident of a close-knit farming community, this show is particularly close to my heart. I’m looking forward to meeting local people who make their living in the industry and hearing their concerns or ideas on what more HSE can do.”

Although only about 1.5 per cent of the working population works in agriculture, the industry accounts for about 20 per cent of work-related deaths every year.