Minister backing farms safety drive

A BORDERS minister is lending his support to the latest campaign by the Health and Safety Executive to cut down farm accidents and fatalities.

The initiative is called "Make the Promise" and is based on farmers and farm workers making a promise to their families to remember health and safety issues when working

Rev Robin McHaffie, minister of Yetholm Parish Church, Kelso, has been distributing "promise knots" to farms in his Borders parish, encouraging farmers to put them up around where they work as a reminder to take care in an attempt to help reduce the number of farm accidents each year.

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Across Great Britain, 38 workers lost their lives in farming-related incidents from January to November 2009. In Scotland five workers were fatally injured and 74 seriously injured in farming accidents in 2008-9.

Visiting Shotton Farm, Mindrum, one of 70 farms in his parish, McHaffie said: "As a minister working in a farming community I was heartened to read of the 'Make the Promise' campaign.

"I am so aware of the devastation to a family that one moment's lack of concentration can bring. Nothing can undo it. Within a moment a wife can become a widow and children orphans.

"If hanging this knot on farm equipment, gates or posts means that I am never again called upon to attend the result of a farm accident, then there can be no greater gift to our farming community."

For the HSE's point of view, Inspector Lawrence Murray said he often had to investigate deaths or serious injuries in and around farms in Scotland.

"Like Mr McHaffie I see at first hand the terrible grief that families face when someone is killed, and it is heartbreaking."

Murray said the HSE offered farmers training, support and guidance on how to keep themselves and their workers safe: "We'd much rather be doing that than dealing with the horrific consequences of accidents, many of which are preventable.

"The recent severe weather and the very real problems this caused highlights only too clearly the need for farmers to take extra care and not expose themselves to unnecessary risks."

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He added that already more than 1,500 farmers across Scotland had made the promise to come home safe. He believed many more may have made the pledge privately. "The challenge for them now is to keep it. Let's make 2010 the year that everyone comes home safe," Murray said.

NFU Scotland boss Jim McLaren also supported the initiative, describing any death or serious injury on a Scottish farm or croft as a tragedy.

He said: "The HSE campaign rightly focuses on the impact that these accidents have on families, friends and businesses but backs that up with readily available information on how to make any farm a safer place to work. Whether you are a new entrant to the sector, or an old hand at farming, there are simple steps that we can all take to ensure such tragedies do not blight our lives."

McLaren added that as part of the campaign, farmers can request "promise knots" to place around their homes and farms as a simple, but ever-present reminder of the commitment they have made to come home safe.