- Location
- Scottish Highlands
Are you not self employed? Most farmers probably are, so can only blame ourselves for overloading. Self inflicted overwork should never be condoned as an acceptable excuse for cutting corners with safety.
Health and safety
- Thread starter Jack Russell
- Start date
Are you not self employed? Most farmers probably are, so can only blame ourselves for overloading. Self inflicted overwork should never be condoned as an acceptable excuse for cutting corners with safety.
ollie989898
Member
I don't think any of us can afford an accident even if we are the only ones affected by it...
- Location
- Scottish Highlands
You never are the only one - relatives, neighbours, ambulance staff.....
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Self inflicted? Every extra piece of extra work I have ever had to do has been imposed from people outside of the farm.
All of these regulatory requirements add up to about another day a week since the 1980's and with less people about to do it due to low prices meaning we can't support the same number of staff.
- Location
- Scottish Highlands
I'm genuinely interested - how do the regulatory requirements add up to a day a week? I appreciate my place may be smaller than yours, but my statutory admin takes me very little time - stock movement book, medicine book, calf registration, a bit of accounts and not much else.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
I could spend a week on the Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ) plan for fertiliser applications and manure management. This used to be done in my uncles head with the occasional resort to the back of a fag packet with same result as we get now but we have to show all the "working out" now.
Red Tractor scheme has added a raft of recording requirements, including integrated pest management plan, health plans for each type,of livestock, continual monitoring and recording of things which used to be common sense things that we did as a matter of course.
I have to record every asbestos roof sheet and when it is replaced and how it is disposed of. I do a multitude of risk assessments and environmental impact assessments.
All waste disposal has to be recorded and accounted for. Cattle movements have to be recorded on paper and on the web.
We do our own accounts valuation now and our own agronomy to save costs which all takes more time. We do our own machinery repairs. To,get people in to do this would make the business unviable. I know we are sailing close to the wind but please appreciate that when commodity prices aren't much better than the 1980's but costs have tripled we really are up against it. Only alternative is to pack it in.
Red Tractor scheme has added a raft of recording requirements, including integrated pest management plan, health plans for each type,of livestock, continual monitoring and recording of things which used to be common sense things that we did as a matter of course.
I have to record every asbestos roof sheet and when it is replaced and how it is disposed of. I do a multitude of risk assessments and environmental impact assessments.
All waste disposal has to be recorded and accounted for. Cattle movements have to be recorded on paper and on the web.
We do our own accounts valuation now and our own agronomy to save costs which all takes more time. We do our own machinery repairs. To,get people in to do this would make the business unviable. I know we are sailing close to the wind but please appreciate that when commodity prices aren't much better than the 1980's but costs have tripled we really are up against it. Only alternative is to pack it in.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Most farmers I know now have to set aside a day a week on paperwork where at one time is was done "after tea" or before breakfast.
- Location
- Scottish Highlands
I'd say that quite a few of those (RT, Agronomy, machinery repairs) aren't regulatory, but I do take your point. I'm not NVZ or RT, so save on those straight up, and every time I read of what RT requires, I am convinced that it's not worth my time, if I had to charge my time at a reasonable rate.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
it probably takes the same number of hours to ensure a small farm is compliant with RT as a large farm. That's the RT nail in the coffin of small farms.
So far we have rise to the challenge but it eats and eats into your leisure time. The veg garden has gone for starters. The bees have gone. The road side tates have gone. We are busy with paperwork meetings and "training" rather than actually doing stuff.
Grandad would turn his grave.
So far we have rise to the challenge but it eats and eats into your leisure time. The veg garden has gone for starters. The bees have gone. The road side tates have gone. We are busy with paperwork meetings and "training" rather than actually doing stuff.
Grandad would turn his grave.
- Location
- Scottish Highlands
How much less money would you make if you ditched RT? And how many hours would you get back?
- Location
- Lincolnshire
I wouldn
I would get back a day a week but wouldn't be able to sell my cereals, oilseeds or beet at all. Lambs at cattle would go to limited markets.
They have us by the short and curlies.
I actually fully agree with the standards set by the schemes but there is no price increase to reflect the quality guarantee. Nobody says we will pay a bit more for RT produce over and above cheap foreign imports. That's the nub of the problem, so we are at an immediate competitive disadvantage to foreign imports. We have the added costs but no price premium.
I would get back a day a week but wouldn't be able to sell my cereals, oilseeds or beet at all. Lambs at cattle would go to limited markets.
They have us by the short and curlies.
I actually fully agree with the standards set by the schemes but there is no price increase to reflect the quality guarantee. Nobody says we will pay a bit more for RT produce over and above cheap foreign imports. That's the nub of the problem, so we are at an immediate competitive disadvantage to foreign imports. We have the added costs but no price premium.
- Location
- Scottish Highlands
So most of the day a week isn't for regulatory requirements but for RT compliance. I still think that there must be a market there for the produce without it, albeit there will be a price detriment. I lose a couple of quid on a lamb and probably nothing on the store cattle.
Correct technique and proper maintenance is the answer to handling a chainsaw safely - the trousers and other ppe are there to hopefully protect you from your own stupidy if you get things wrong.
The trousers will not protect your face, chest or arms from a violent kickback or a fall over a running chain, nor will they prevent a leg cut unless the throttle is released, or an attempt to cut your toes off.
The answer to the "quick job" question is to use chaps not trousers.
The PPE is valuable - but it is the last line of defence not the first
kiwi pom
Member
- Location
- canterbury NZ
Exactly and how do you learn the correct technique and proper maintenance, especially if you're 18 never seen a chain saw before but the boss has just told you to cut up that tree that just fell over.
That's what these courses are for because stuff like that used to happen all the time and people got hurt.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
I was helping the blaster dynamite stumps when I was seven years old. Used to dig under the stumps and put sticks of dynamite under them, then pack them in with soil. Don't bash them too hard he said, when packing them in. He always left his engine running before he lit the fuses then off we went in his ford Anglia.
Risk assessments? Environmental impact assessments? Don't know, but it made the windows in town rattle.
Risk assessments? Environmental impact assessments? Don't know, but it made the windows in town rattle.
- Location
- Scottish Highlands
And back then, a lot more people died in workplace accidents. The improvement in safety in the last few decades has been remarkable with an 85% reduction since 1974.
Sadly, the killer you mentioned earlier is still doing the deed though - asbestos related deaths run at around seven every day (2600/year), as a result of historic exposure.
yes they are the same old faces
kiwi pom
Member
- Location
- canterbury NZ
Yep i'll be here trying to help any employee's that get hurt because farmers cant be arsed to do things properly.
As I've said many times though, I'm not really arsed what one man bands do to themselves as long as they're not hurting contractors, vets etc.
Actually I think we may have lost one Forum member to an accident since this topic last came up?
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- Location
- Lincolnshire
Aye, and we have had an 85% reduction in manufacturing industry since 1974.
- Location
- Scottish Highlands
That's certainly a factor, but not as much as 85% and certainly not the only reason for the improvement.