Dennis Murphy

Investing in the education of machinery users and in research on risk prevention is very important for reducing the number of deaths in the workplace and accidents in agriculture. The department of agrarian and biological engineering of the University of Pennsylvania has been developing an interesting programme for the past few years entitled: “Penn State Agricultural Safety and Health”, directed by Prof. Dennis Murphy.

Activities

The programme consists of numerous activities, including research projects aimed at reducing exposure to risks and initiatives to train young farmers to prevent accidents and deal with emergencies on the farm.

The website contains a yearly observatory of accidents (the latest figures referring to 2008), a two-monthly newsletter and numerous training brochures.

One of the most original initiatives is a team quiz on the subject of safety, aimed at students and offering cash prizes.

The Pesticide Education Program

Another interesting programme being developed by the department of agrarian and biological engineering is the Pesticide Education Program, designed to train youngsters on the use of crop protection products.

The programme sets out to teach the correct use of pesticides in order to protect both the environment and the health of farmworkers.

In addition to scientific research, the department also organises courses for the renewal of annual certification for machinery users.

Murray Madsen

In 2009 65 people died as a result of work-related accidents. This is the lowest number recorded since 2001 by the Iowa Fatality Assessment & Control Evaluation (IA FACE) conducted by the University of Iowa.

Murray Madsen, head of the Programme’s survey on traumas, commented: “We have only seen such low numbers twice since the programme began back in the mid-1990s. Although there might be a slight rise when year-end data come in, we can say right now that the drop in the number of work-related deaths in Iowa is positive news”.

Madsen believes that the fall is partly due to the economic crisis, with special reference to the drop in traffic volumes and thus a fall in road accidents.

Agriculture was again the sector posting the largest number of work-related deaths: 35% of the 2009 total.

On a positive note, there were fewer cases of overturning tractors, falls from heights and knock-downs involving farm machinery. Madsen recalled however that everybody has to work to reduce the number of accidents, in particular making farmworkers aware of the main risks they run.

There has been a fall in the number of fatal industrial accidents in Ireland. According to the report presented in January 2010 by the Health and Safety Authority (HSA), in 2009 there were 43 fatal accidents in the workplace, the lowest number since studies began in 1991, when there were 73 deaths. In relation to the number of workers, the percentage of fatal accidents in these years has fallen from 6.31% to 2.23%.

Agriculture and building – the most dangerous sectors

Like in other European countries, agriculture is one of the working sectors most at risk: in 2009  alone there were 11 deaths in this sector, over 25% of the total. This did however mark a fall compared with the previous year, when 21 deaths were recorded.

The building industry had the second highest incidence of fatalities in 2009, with 10 work-related deaths.

According to the specialist journal Health and Safety Review one of the factors influencing this result is the fall in employment levels and in productive activities. The economic recession is not however the only factor behind this fall, according to the journal. Compared with a fall in GDP of 7.25% in 2009 compared with the previous year, there was a 24% fall in work-related deaths over the same period.

The Minister of State at the department of enterprise, trade and employment, Dara Calleary, said he was satisfied with this positive trend, even though now was not the time to be complacent. Credit for these results should go in the main to the successful collaboration between the Authority, enterprises and workers’ representatives.

Source: European Working Conditions Observatory (EWCO)

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Danger lurks around the corner

Fairly often a farm is not only the place where a family works, but it is also the place where a family lives.

This means that every member of the family is continuously exposed to the dangers of an environment where machines, chemicals, livestock and animal faeces are constantly present.

Two categories are at particular risk: children and elderly people.
Children often help out with the chores and, furthermore, they find the farm a wonderful playground. They are thus exposed to many dangers.

Elderly farmers, as can been seen in the Osservatorio, remain active up to a very ripe age. Often they are not aware that their strength and reaction times are not as they used to be in the past, and they tend to run unnecessary risks.

Moreover, there are other aspects to consider: multifunctional agriculture allows guests to engage in several activities around the farm. Therefore open farms become social and educational centres providing services such as animal assisted therapy, social rehabilitation and gradual (re)introduction into the job market.

These new activities require different, and sometimes extra, safety measures that allow guests to move freely, but safely, around the farm.

Same problems in different places

Despite the diversity in terms of environments and cultivations, agricultural safety problems tend to be very similar in different countries. As borne out by the statistics, agriculture is near the top of the list of industries having the highest fatal accident rates.

Many projects are run to improve awareness of the potential dangers that exist on the farm. These are often sponsored by government or research institutions, although they can also be promoted by farmers that have suffered great emotional losses.

Three associations to improve safety

One example is the American organization Farm Safety 4 Just Kids, whose mission is to promote a safe farm environment to prevent health hazards, injuries, and fatalities to children and youth through public education, awareness campaigns, and developing teaching materials.

Farm Safety 4 Just Kids

Farm Safety 4 Just Kids came into being after Marilyn Adams lost her 11 year-old son, Keith, who suffocated while unloading grain. After this dramatic event, Marilyn decided to start a child safety campaign, addressing kids directly.

Her mission is to raise children’s awareness about potential dangers and to offer training and education to families that want to make their farm a safer place to live and work on.

The organization stages demonstrations, performances and games for kids, and publishes statistics, reports and useful materials for parents.

Another organization that campaigns for children’s safety, among other things, is the UK’s governmental institution HSE, the Health and Safety Executive.

The institution’s aim is to develop the awareness of the public, farmworkers and children about the potential dangers the little ones can be exposed to.
In addition to ads campaigns, HSE makes available to parents and children booklets on farm safety that can be downloaded for free from the website.

Another positive project has been launched by New Zealanders farmers through FarmSafe, an organization that offers training on the risks and dangers of working in agriculture.

Besides offering safety tips on the web, FarmSafe organizes three different workshops (FarmSafe Awareness, FarmSafe Plans, FarmSafe Skills) and issues certificates for some of them.

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The workshops are designed to heighten awareness of injury prevention, draw up an effective health and safety plan for farmhouses and raise the practical skills of those who work on the land (riding vehicles, using chainsaws, handling chemical substances, driving tractors, handling animals, etc.).

Dr. Peter Lundqvist was a guest at one of the FarmSafe workshops. He praised FarmSafe’s educational and awareness-raising approach and underlined the similarities between safety problems in Nordic countries and those in New Zealand.

And because of the similarities between countries, it would be wise to adopt Marilyn Adams’ advice and join in with efforts to create a safer environment:

it takes each and everyone of us working together to keep more kids safe and happy.

On the occasion of the second anniversary of the Declaration we interviewed Peter Lundqvist, professor at the Department of Work Science, Business Economics and Environmental Psychology of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences at Alnarp.

Prof. Lundqvist, could you tell us how the Kuopio Declaration was conceived?

The Kuopio Declaration was the result of a number of events, such as:

• a Swedish survey (performed by our university) which showed that only 10% of all (non-fatal) injuries among farmers was reported in the official databases
• the number of fatal injuries in agriculture had increased significantly in all Nordic countries (Sweden, Denmark, Finland & Norway)
• resources for preventing injuries in agriculture had decreased in Nordic countries (less resources for research, inspections, preventive measures, etc.)
• a number of articles in the media about these problems (including some written by myself).

During the Kuopio meeting I thought it would be a good idea to bring up this issue, the conference participants accepted my proposal and we wrote the Declaration together.

In August 2006 the Declaration proposed a vision for a zero fatal injury target to be reached by 2012 in Nordic countries. Do you believe this target is still attainable?

Yes, I do. But then it needs to be accepted by all partners involved: farmers, farm families, farm workers, farmers organizations, farm worker unions, the agricultural industries, authorities, research & education as well as the media. If most of them will contribute in changing attitudes among workers, improving health & safety training, etc – it will be possible. No one should die at work or at home (children or family members) due to injuries in the farm environment. The involved causes, often livestock and machinery, can be handled. We cannot prevent all injuries, but we must prevent fatal injuries! However, we need help and resources and we all need to work together!

With regard to a joint effort, you propose a farmer-driven approach to information/education, following the experience of FarmSafe in New Zealand. What are the special benefits of this approach?

We strongly believe that it is a matter of changing farmers’ attitudes so that they can change their behaviour at work. By involving farmers themselves we show them that it is their own problem and that they are an important part of the solution. All steps of such a programme need to be developed together with the farmers.

One effect of the Kuopio Declaration was the establishment of a Swedish Commission on farm accidents. Among the suggestions proposed in the report issued by the Commission, special attention was given to injury prevention for children and elderly people, two categories that are much at risk in the agricultural sector.

Yes, this is something specifically related to agriculture. Children live on a farm, it is their home, they play there and help out the adults. We have developed guidelines for parents who want their children to help out – but in a safe way!

Elderly people are active at an old age in agriculture. They are not always aware that they have hearing disorders nor that their movements are slower, or that they have less strength and longer reaction times. They must learn to avoid danger and only engage in the less strenuous and hazardous type of work. At the same time, working is good for your health – but only at the right level!

From Kuopio to Europe: what kind of advantages could be obtained at a national level from a EU-based approach to health and safety in agriculture?

It is important to learn from each other and share experiences from different countries within the EU. A joint action programme has also the advantage to be more acceptable for those people which have a negative attitude towards the programme. I also believe that we need to put in EU money as carrots. Today farmers get a lot of EU funding – but with very little or no connection to health & safety!
We are very optimistic about the chances Sweden has to invest some money from the EU rural development programme to establish a programme for improving health and safety on Swedish farms!

According to information from the University of Iowa Great Plains Center for Agricultural Health (USA), press clippings help researchers categorize agricultural injuries and illnesses, which helps plan out new health and safety measures.

The Center began collecting clippings from across the US in 2002, scaled back to just four states (Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska) for a couple years, then decided to expand in 2007 to collect clippings for all 9-states of the upper Midwest: Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

The great plains, USA

Center Director Wayne Sanderson and colleague Murray Madsen like press clipping data because it includes important and interesting details and insights.

Madsen says that although press clippings cannot always be considered as authoritative, they “provide a unique source of details regarding non-fatal injuries”, especially because this type of information is not captured well in any of the nine States.

He also remarks that “press clippings offer a clear picture of the major safety issues that deserve continued attention”.

For example, tractor overturns account for about 40% of fatal and 12% of the non-fatal incidents reported in press clips. “In addition to overturns, one cannot look at the press clippings and fail to see the loss of farmers who are run over, engulfed by grain flows, or mauled by livestock. And you cannot miss the toll of injuries to drivers and passengers in the thousand-or-so motor-vehicle crashes involving farm equipment each year in our 9-state region” Madsen points out.

As a matter of fact, nearly half of all non-fatal tractor and machinery-related incidents reported in press clippings last year were in crashes between farm equipment and motor vehicles on public roadways. Madsen observes, “Increased attention to crash prevention on rural roads, and sharing roads safely with farm equipment, can result in fewer crashes, fewer injuries, and fewer deaths.”

A similar survey has been carried out since the beginning of 2007 by the editorial staff of this blog. The accident reports have been compiled from the Italian online press and can be viewed in the Observatory section (in Italian).

Although the financial resources to fight hunger and boost agriculture in the countries hardly hit by the food crisis have been renewed, NGOs organizations do not approve the declaration stating that it only re-confirms the commitment that governments had already agreed on, but does not provide any specific guidelines. As a matter of fact, it is not clear how the financial aid will be spent in order to contain the food and energy crisis.
Only a little has been said about global warming and biofuels, although they should have been the main issues to be discussed during the summit. In the declaration, biofuels are mentioned only at the seventh point and only to recommend further studies on the impact they have on the environment, on agriculture and on the rise of food prices. Data also differ according to the source: the US claims that biofuels affect the rise of food costs (calculated at 43%) of about 3%, while the Food Policy Research Institute states that the figure is definitely higher (about 30%) and the International Monetary Fund estimates it between 15 and 30%.

However, some positive results have been achieved like a new collaboration between AGRA (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa) and FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development), and WFP (World Food Programme). Moreover, Kofi Annan e Jacques Diouf (FAO Director- General) wished for a “green revolution” in Africa in order to boost and improve the working conditions of farm workers and to create a market that could stimulate the production in areas with relatively good rainfall, soils, infrastructure, and markets.

The Casa del Cinema is a 2,500 sq. m. venue hosted in the historical Casina delle Rose in Villa Borghese, one of Rome’s main parks, only 50 metres from via Veneto. The building has been entirely restored by the Municipality of Rome and boasts a superb 124-seat cinema theatre created by Deluxe and a smaller conference room (Sala Kodak, with 64 seats).

The Forum will take place in the Deluxe theatre and will be divided in two (morning and afternoon) sessions.

More information is available on the GAS Forum website.

Casa del cinema website (in Italian)