A family farm is a busy place. The fact that the running of a business is intertwined with family life makes the job interesting. There are always a couple of issues demanding attention or pushing you for time.

Bus timetables clashing with a calving can test priorities. A mix of age groups and skill levels working alongside with machinery and unpredictable animals. It is a long way from the controlled environment of a safety officer in a factory. Safety is everyone’s job, but as a farmer it is my responsibility to coordinate and maintain the farm as a workplace.

Last Monday had been designated as National Farm Safety Day. The idea was for all farmers to review their safety statement and to involve every member of the farming team. The statement is a legal and an insurance policy requirement but is also very useful as a type of safety NCT. It is very easy to work every day without noticing problems that are obvious to fresh eyes. It is also very easy to grow a very long finger to store jobs for a rainy day.

First job was to replace a damaged PTO cover on the slurry tanker, I felt it was more important to do it than just record it. I was determined then to focus on the safety statement, but it is very easy to get distracted. Usual stuff like an RTE News camera crew turning up!

I’m getting well used to media as an IFA officer at this stage and I made use of the new PTO cover. That kind of interview and demo has to be designed to interest both farmers and the public. I hope the genuine effort put in by every sector of the media will continue to drive the safety message.

Job done and it was back to finish the safety statement. I had decided it was better to start from scratch as many buildings and machinery had been changed, which crowded and complicated my original. I used the online version at www.farmsafely.com which took a little while to get into, but I found it easy to follow. Anything marked as a problem automatically appears at the end for explanation and a target date for completion. If I forget I will get a gentle reminder by email.

There have been 14 not so gentle reminders already this year of just how fragile we are. I know bad news sells papers but we must make farm safety a well-covered good news story, and the message must be on the real gains rather than box ticking for legal obligations. It would have taken far longer waiting for an ambulance, than it took to replace my PTO cover, and safety needn’t cost an arm and a leg.