Farm safety: Children using machinery is 'not appropriate or suitable'

Children driving and using farm machinery must be denormalised in farming, as it is not “appropriate, suitable or fair”.

This is the view of Alma Jordan, the founder of AgriKids – a child farm safety educational platform launched in 2015.

Speaking to Agriland, Jordan said the main threat to children, and the main cause of fatalities involving children on farms, remains tractors and machinery.

“When it comes to safety on the farm, definitely at this time of the year, I suppose the theme that I would love to see adopted and taken on board is caution and common sense,” she said.

“I don’t think there’s any other workplace where child exposure to risk is so high, and definitely the accessibility that children have to farm vehicles and farm machinery is a major factor within that.”

Jordan said the farming sector must denormalise this exposure to risk that children are presented with all too often, especially now during the “heights of silage and hay season”.

“The amount of times I’ve seen on social media children actively driving and using farm machinery, and it being presented in a way that’s this kind of badge of honour, this kind of right of passage,” she said.

“We need to denormalise that. It’s not appropriate, it’s not suitable and it’s definitely not fair.”

The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) has said children between the ages of seven and 16 may ride on a tractor if it is fitted with a properly designed and fitted passenger seat (with seat belts) inside a safety cab or frame.

Under no circumstances should a child under seven years of age be carried inside the cab of a tractor, irrespective of whether a passenger seat is provided or not, the HSA has stressed.

‘I don’t buy any of those excuses’

Jordan said children and younger teenagers driving and handling farm machinery is something she will “never be okay with”.

“I understand it and I’ve heard the arguments that ‘labour is short. We need help. They’ve been doing it forever. It’s how we all started. It’s how we all learned. If we don’t expose them to this aspect of farm life, they’re not going to get into farming’,” she said

“I don’t really buy any of those excuses because you know, we’re coming up to June 30, we’ll see the 11th Embrace Farm Ecumenical Service where we get to remember those lost to a farming accident.

“When you see the young children whose faces are up on the altar and you see all the people up there who we have lost, and you meet the families and you meet those who have been affected by a farming accident where they’ve lost somebody or they’ve had a life-altering injury, it’s very hard to accept the excuses that are put out there.”

Between 2011 and 2020, children made up 10% of all farm fatalities. 85% of the 21 deaths were caused by tractors, farm vehicles or other machinery.

“If I worked in a factory, if I worked in an office, if I worked in the construction site, I wouldn’t be bringing my child with me,” Jordan said.

“I wouldn’t be having my newborn baby on the floor of the tractor cab as I’m driving around or in or in a milk crate, as I’ve seen before.

“It’s really when you’ve met a paramedic, it’s when you’ve met a guard, it’s when you’ve met a family, when you’ve held a mother, that it really comes home how dangerous a farm is and how quickly things can change.”

Age-appropriate jobs

Jordan said farms must adopt an attitude centred on age-appropriate jobs and age-appropriate risk.

“I grew up on a farm, I understand how difficult it is. I understand that everybody gets involved with the farm. It is the family business, but we need to be adopting an attitude of age-appropriate jobs and age-appropriate risk,” she said.

“Any child 9, 10, 11 or 12-years-of-age being left alone to manage a 30t tractor and trailer is a prime example where common sense is just not existing on our farms.

“I’d really call on the government here and the policymakers to step in and, not put rules in into place, because we already have rules.

“The rules aren’t being followed and not being enforced, so to kind of come back with some level of compromise here.”

If farmers are struggling with labour and access to contractors, Jordan said something should be done by the government to “nip it in the bud”.

“At the end of the day, I don’t want people to be thinking about farm safety for me or for the HSA. But to do it for the kids. Do it for their own children. Do it for those families who have lost.

“We’re not denying children their right of passage that goes with life on a farm, we want them to treat the farm with respect. We want them to treat it as a place of work and to value it as a workplace.

“I understand that it is a home and all that but at the end of the day we are losing people. People are literally dying and we have to really ask ourselves – what can we do to prevent this?”

AgriKids

Since the launch of AgriKids in 2015, Jordan said she has singlehandedly organised workshops, programmes and events.

“I have met with government; I’ve met with policymakers; I’ve worked with some of the leading farm organisations,” she said.

“Yet I’m still left unsupported in delivering this message, so if they’re really serious about farm safety, if they are true, and they say ‘I’ve got a great idea, I’ve got a great approach’, well allow me to do it on a bigger scale.

“I am dealing with probably one of the most valuable and most vulnerable aspects of our community, which is the children.

“I’ve recognised their ability in dealing with this issue and ‘pester power’ is a well known method for changing attitudes and changing culture and children are hugely influential within that.”

Jordan said she has seen children speaking with their grandparents about farm safety and going home and having conversations with their family.

At one school in Wexford, Jordan said a farm safety week was organised and topics from machinery to mental health were dealt with by students, parents and the wider community.