The chair of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Martin Temple has published an open letter to the farming sector asking it to clean up its act on farm accidents.

The hard-hitting letter explains that one in 10 people working on farms will be hurt or have health problems working over a five-year period.

Recent statistics show that agriculture is again one of the worst accident rates across all sectors, with a recent spike in deaths of young people on farms.

Compelled

The HSE chair wrote: “I feel compelled to write this letter because it is clear there has been little real improvement in managing risk effectively on farms.

"While there have been some inroads and improvements made by the industry, the recent rise in the number of fatalities, although subject to natural variation, concerns me.”

The culture across the industry remains a problem

“Messages are not getting through."

He described how larger and more sophisticated machinery is not making farms any safer, while other similar industries have an improving record.

He said he believed farmers and their families place “less value on the health and safety of themselves and their workers than other industries”.

He said that farming has fatal injuries about 18 times higher than the average across all other industries.

"While some progress has clearly been made on these issues, the culture across the industry remains a problem.”