Approximately 100 Dairygold farmers engaged in a farm safety project last week in Co Cork, where they received training in the area of safety, health and wellbeing, through the medium of live theatre.Sinéad Flannery, assistant professor in Behavioural Science in Agriculture at UCD, who is involved in the Safe Farm EIP project, told the Teagasc seminar that the response from farmers was “phenomenal”.
Approximately 100 Dairygold farmers engaged in a farm safety project last week in Co Cork, where they received training in the area of safety, health and wellbeing, through the medium of live theatre.
Sinéad Flannery, assistant professor in Behavioural Science in Agriculture at UCD, who is involved in the Safe Farm EIP project, told the Teagasc seminar that the response from farmers was “phenomenal”.
Farmers watched four scenes, played by two different actors, of a typical day on the farm; one actor was the farmer and the other was the farmer’s daughter.
In between each scene farmers discussed what they saw.
“They had to come up with solutions or talk about how these challenges could be addressed day-to-day on a farm. The farmers were then given time for reflection and to think about what’s happening on their own farm also.
“The script was developed based on research, it was farmer-led, and they told us what they wanted.
“There were some farmers who said to us that people spoke who wouldn’t generally speak at events like that,” she said.
It also brought up emotional and real-life situations, Flannery said, where some farmers spoke about circumstances they had been through or were currently going through on their own farm.
This is a subscriber-only article
SHARING OPTIONS: