Avoid Harm on the Farm 🐄 🚜 🐑

Today, the children enjoyed listening to a farming presentation by Alex. We learnt lots of important information on how to keep safe on the farm. 

Agriculture has one of the highest fatal accident rates of any industry in Northern Ireland and is also the only high risk industry that has to deal with the constant presence of children.

As a parent there are a number of things you can do to help prevent your child having an accident - the following checklist should help.

Farm safety checklist for parents

• have a safe and secure play area for young children
• prevent children from playing in or around farmyards and livestock
• make sure your vehicles have good all-round visibility
• prevent all children under 13 years from riding on tractors and farm machinery
• restrict the use of the quad and provide suitable safety equipment
• secure all heavy wheels, gates, heavy equipment and stacked materials to prevent them from toppling over
• ensure your slurry lagoon is securely fenced to prevent children from gaining access and make sure tank covers are always in place 
• always keep children well away when mixing slurry
• keep track of where family members are playing or working and when they are expected back 
• make sure everyone washes their hands before eating and drinking 
• keep chemicals locked in a secure store when not in use
• make sure that guards are in place to prevent access to dangerous parts of machinery
• make sure all family members know what to do in an emergency 
• prepare a list of emergency contact telephone numbers