With Easter holidays approaching, the Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) is urging parents and guardians to be extremely careful as many children will be about the home and farm over the break. With curious minds and adventurous spirits, children love to get out on the farm to meet the animals, but farms are a place of work and are a dangerous environment for children. Farms, and in particular working farms, can be tempting places for them to play and often children do not understand the dangers a farm can present.
The Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland (HSENI) have provided a farm safety checklist for parents to help them keep their kids safe regardless of the time of year:
- 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
The UFU would encourage farmers and their families to visit the HSENI website (www.hseni.gov.uk) for further information on farm safety. The Farm Safety Foundation has also produced a guidance document aimed at the parents of children who live on farms. It contains lots of excellent farm safety advice and can be found on their website.
