Farm health and safety is a 'cultural issue'

Farm health and safety is a cultural issue and so needs to be embedded in farm workplace culture to combat agriculture’s “shockingly poor health and safety record”.

This is according to REAL Success, which provides recruitment services and people development support, primarily to the agriculture sector in the UK.

REAL Success chief executive Paul Harris said: “There is too much emphasis on compliance – filling in forms, having a health and safety folder, posters and so on – and not enough emphasis on culture.

“Health and safety is a cultural issue; although we have legal obligations, if we’re going to try and change the health and safety record of the industry, we need to start by improving the workplace attitude.”

This will involve ensuring good working conditions, sensible working hours and managing people with priority given to their safety.

“There will always be more accidents if employees are tired, working with poorly maintained equipment, or in a culture where unnecessary risks are accepted as the norm,” Harris said.

“We work on building great teams of people, but a great culture is needed to build great health and safety – happy farms are safe farms. This is important for leadership too; it’s the employer’s job to protect their employees.”

Quad safety

For example, Harris said people can do courses for driving quad bikes safely and be encouraged to wear a helmets, but “if health and safety isn’t central to the culture of the business then no amount of courses will save lives”, Harris said.

“Wearing a helmet can save lives – it’s simple – it shouldn’t be a compliance thing, it should be an attitude thing and cemented into the team from the top to the bottom.