As we approach the end of another year and the start of the festive season, it is important to reflect on everything that we have achieved this year and the challenges that still face us as we continue to raise awareness of farm safety among the farmers of the future. In 2016:
- We trained over 2,000 farming students in 20 colleges across the UK.
- We achieved Lantra accreditation for our award-winning ‘Introduction to Farm Safety’ half day course.
- We coordinated the highly successful Farm Safety Week 2016.
- We were awarded the prestigious Business in the Community Samworth Brothers Rural Action Award
- We developed a special 90 minute ‘Farm Safe!’ training toolkit that YFCs can request to be delivered by young farmers for young farmers at club level; and
- We redesigned and relaunched our brand new website
So you could say that this has been an action packed year. We are forever grateful for the support we have received from the Farm Safety Partnerships, Young Farmers Clubs and Health & Safety Executive and, of course, our generous funders NFU Mutual.
One thing remains the same however, and that is that, this weekend, too many families will be sitting down to Christmas dinner with an empty seat at the table. Twenty seven farm workers lost their lives over the past year as a result of a workplace accident and we need this to stop.
This week we have been bringing together high profile figures and leaders in the industry to offer their top tips for farm safety on Twitter and Facebook in the hope that the industry starts to minimise risk taking behaviour but we need your help…
Please continue to ‘Like’ us on Facebook and ‘Follow’ us on Twitter and share our tips so that we can get this farm safety message to as wide an audience as possible and let’s make 2017 the year when farming becomes the safe, secure and sustainable industry that it deserves to be.
Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a safe and prosperous New Year.
