The Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland (HSENI) is urging farmers and contractors to take extra care when carrying out grass-cutting and silage-making operations.
Working with high-powered and fast-moving grass machinery, rolling (buckraking) grass, and covering grass silos are all particularly dangerous activities, the HSENI warned.
It said the risk is increased further by operator fatigue due to the long hours worked to get the job done as quickly as possible.
To reduce the risk of serious incidents it is essential that all the work activities are carefully planned, the HSENI added.
Acting agri-team principal inspector, David Lowe said: “Any tractors and grass-cutting equipment used should be well-maintained and carefully checked before use to ensure that gears and brakes are working effectively and that all PTOs and moving parts are fully guarded.
“Filling silos and rolling grass during silage-making is skilled and challenging work which should only be carried out by trained and experienced drivers.
“There is a high risk of vehicles overturning due to the uneven and soft ground conditions and the steep gradients involved and any vehicles used for this work must have an approved safety cab or ‘roll bar’ together with a correctly fitted seat restraint to protect the driver.”
Lowe said that extreme care is also required when the silo cover is being put in place.
“There is always a high risk of people falling from height when covering the silo but there is also a significant danger of being trapped beneath the silage cover,” he explained.
“Nobody should go underneath the cover once it has been fixed in place – the fermenting grass uses up the oxygen under the cover very quickly and the level of harmful gases increase rapidly.”
Lowe added that fatigue due to long working hours, poor weather conditions, difficult ground conditions, inexperienced operators and using mobile phones when driving all “add greatly to the risks during silage-making”.
