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Over 50% of agricultural science students believe their chance of getting into a farm incident is low, a study conducted by Teagasc and University College Dublin (UCD) has found.
Some 417 first and second year agricultural science students in UCD took part in the study, which is part of the BeSafe Project, funded by the Department of Agriculture.
The study sought to understand if experience, awareness or social influences increase or decrease risk perception.
ln addition to the low risk perception, the results found that the level of work experience has little influence on risk perception.
25% experienced a near miss
Awareness of someone who had a serious injury or of someone killed on a farm substantially increased students’ risk perception.
More than one third of students (34%) knew someone killed in a farm incident, 14% knew someone who suffered a severe injury (defined as being out of work or study for more than a day), while 25% experienced a near miss.
Family
Social influencers - that is family members and farmers known to the students - were found to have the largest impact on students' risk perception.
Teagasc said that it was worrying that these social influencers had a negative impact on the students’ risk perception.
The study also found that students’ level of farm injury risk perception was highest where a family member experienced a severe injury, followed by a near miss, followed thereafter by hearing about someone who died and lastly by hearing about someone injured.
These findings indicate that direct personal experience has the strongest influence on student risk perception.
The launch of the research took place at UCD Lyons Farm in Co Kildare on Friday 3 March.
Awareness
Speaking to the students at the launch, Minister of State with special responsibility for farm safety at the Department of Agriculture Martin Heydon said that we cannot wait until the near miss to increase risk awareness.
“Farms right now are the most dangerous workplace in Ireland. Our young farmers and graduates have the ability to change the culture around farm safety and it is important we support them to make our farms better places to work and live," he said.
Post-doctoral scholar and lead author of the study Dr Mohammad Mohammdrezaei of Teagasc stated that the student study findings are similar to those of another BeSafe paper, which found that if agricultural advisers perceive that ‘leading farmers’ do not see farm health and safety as important, they are unlikely to raise the issue with farmers.
Conference
In late August this year, a major international conference on farm safety will be held in Ireland focusing on attitudes and perceptions towards safety.
Dr Sinéad Flannery and Professor Jim Kinsella at the UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science stressed that the findings are important in establishing differences in perception of risks between groups of students and highlights that student experiences of injuries or near misses may be an important source of knowledge that other students can identify with and learn from.
Teagasc health and safety specialist advisor Dr John McNamara stated that the study findings tally with recent research in Canada, which indicates the strong influence of farm parents on safety behaviours of their family members.
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