An Cailín Ciúin has a lesson all farmers must heed

An Cailín Ciúin, which centres on the impact of a farm accident, underlines how we should incentivise more farmers to attend farm safety/farmer health courses

Thought-provoking: nominated An Cailín Ciúin is mostly set on a dairy farm in Waterford in the 1980s

Thought-provoking: nominated An Cailín Ciúin is mostly set on a dairy farm in Waterford in the 1980s

Film

A still from the film

Thought-provoking: nominated An Cailín Ciúin is mostly set on a dairy farm in Waterford in the 1980s

February 02 2023 07:44 AM

I recently watched the Oscar-nominated An Cailín Ciúin (The Quiet Girl), a thought-provoking Irish language film mostly set on a dairy farm in Waterford in the 1980s.

The contrast with a modern hi-tech dairy farm is stark, but the film underlines how the issue of farm safety, and the long-lasting consequences of a farm accident, are the same now as they were then. Without wishing to spoil an excellent film for you, the impact of a farm accident weighs heavily on the characters in the film.

When applying for a TAMS grant, one of the conditions is that the applicant attends a farm safety course.

Because I had applied for a grant on a new fertiliser spreader, a trip to the classroom was required. I wasn’t too excited about it, but I learned a lot.

A still from the film

Statistically, farming is the most dangerous sector to work in. A Teagasc survey found that there were 4,523 farm accidents in 2020. 46pc of farm injuries required hospitalisation, with a further 18pc needing to see their GP.

Almost one in every five people involved in farm accidents were out of work for two months or more.

Teagasc’s survey is perhaps on the conservative side, and does not include the many near-misses that were likely to have occurred.

In 2022 there were 26 work-related fatalities in Ireland, with 12 of them on farms.

It is hard to compare a working farm with other work-places, as the majority of Irish farms are family-run, often with two or three generations present, which creates safety challenges that do not exist in most other work-places.

Over the last ten years, 10pc of farm deaths were children under 14 years, and 45pc were over 65, with Friday, Saturday and Sunday being the days when most accidents occur.

In total, 55pc of farm deaths were in age groups that would not be found in most other work-places.

These statistics highlight the challenge of maintaining a safe farm at all times.

The Teagasc course was excellent, and well worth making time to attend. There was a strong focus not just on the usual danger points on a farm, but on overall farmer physical health and mental health, and how the two are linked.

There is an opportunity to use CAP funds to incentivise and encourage more farmers to attend similar farm safety/farmer health courses.

It is hard to change work practices that have been the norm for years, but the focus should be to create a work environment where every farmer can aim to reach retirement age, fit and healthy.

Funding has been allocated to discussion groups and knowledge-transfer groups in the past.

Increasing workloads on farms are putting enormous pressure on farmers, and there is now a clear need to make the welfare of the farmers running Irish farms the most important issue on every farm.

Angus Woods is a drystock farmer in Co Wicklow