Summer holidays are almost at an end, the turf is being brought home from the bog and the combines are out cutting the barley. With school closed, we’ve had Craig and Tegan helping out on the farm. It’s been a good distraction for Craig whilst he was awaiting the Leaving Cert results, although it’s not always easy to get hold of Tegan as she has been playing for Galway county camogie.

July was a big month for promoting farm safety, with the fifth annual Farm Safety Week taking place. It involved five counties collaborating over five days to promote five themes with the same key point: farm safety is a lifestyle, not a slogan.

Farmers were urged to really take time to think about safety and minimise potential risks in their day-to-day work. The main areas covered were: the current stark figure of deaths on farms (14 at the time); dangers around machinery and transport; falls; livestock, and children on farms.

Over 50% of the deaths on farms last year were due to machinery and 20% were from falls – falling from a height or being struck by a falling object. Accidents with livestock, thankfully, were not fatal in the main, but they did result in injuries, which were life-changing for some, and all resulted in absence from work and medical bills.

This time of year also means there are more children on many farms. The message from Farm Safety Week was to empower children by giving them the knowledge about the dangers on a farm.

There is great concern that people continue the belief that “it won’t happen to me” and they don’t take responsibility for their own safety. If that happens, the fatality figures could well match those of 2014 when 30 people died on farms, leaving their families and communities devastated.

Many accidents, fatal or otherwise, can be avoided by changing habits, maintaining machinery/equipment, stopping work when you become too tired and not taking shortcuts. Farmers and their families are the number one resource for agriculture – please take care of yourself and your loved ones. Safety should not be seen as a lottery – the next statistic could be you if you don’t mind yourself.

Funding for farm safety was proposed in IFA’s 2018 Budget submission, which came out last month – addressing the TAMs farm safety measure, financial assistance to implement the farm safety action plan 2016-18 and a grant-aided PTO scrappage scheme to encourage replacement of old PTO shafts.

A fair-means assessment of farm assets for the Fair Deal Scheme is also included – we won’t back down on this and will keep on fighting. In fact, a meeting is scheduled with the IFA and Minister Daly at the end of August on this.

The IFA is also proposing that the contributory pension scheme is moved from the current averaging system, which can be discriminatory, particularly for women, to a total contribution system. More details on all of these are on IFA.ie.

Another part of summer I love is that it is also the time when there are lots of agricultural shows around the country. Tullamore was great and, of course, I can’t wait for the Ploughing as I am actually representing Galway in the Farmerette class. I will also be in the IFA tent, so drop in if you are there. CL