The objectives of the project include a change in culture in terms of farm work practices, embed farm safety, health and wellbeing in knowledge transfer in discussion groups, signpost farmers and farm families to the relevant supports/services that they may require, create a permanent farm safety, health and wellbeing network by using appropriate discourse for farmers and ensuring that nobody is left behind within the farming community, highlight the importance of creating a buddy system that will tackle the issue of social isolation within the agriculture sector and give farmers an opportunity to talk to co-farmers and support each other during busy working periods.
The majority of farm fatalities/injuries on farms are avoidable and this project will highlight the importance of farm safety, health and wellbeing on family farms. Extreme pressures within the agriculture sector has led to farmers experiencing stress, anxiety, fatigue and financial pressures and this in turn can lead to an incident/fatality occurring. This Farm Safety EIP AGRI project indicates the importance of farmers looking after their own health and wellbeing and ensuring they are not risking their safety in carrying out jobs on the farm.
Farmers4Safety Managing Risk Together offers a bottom up initiative that is tailored to each region to ensure it will capture a change in farmer’s attitudes and behaviors by tackling and improving the social norms around farm safety, health and wellbeing. The 6-part time farm mentors will drive the project on the ground, highlight the different support mechanisms available to farmers and farm families, disseminate up-to date information about all farm safety, health and wellbeing matters, collaborate with farmers and farm families on the ground and tackle the issue of social isolation and collate all of their findings on the ground and discuss innovative ways that the project can address these issues/concerns that the farming communities face on the ground.
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