Enhancing Farm Health & Safety: Swedish Strategies & Initiatives

1. ISASH Annual Conference 2016, Lexington, KYIntegration ofhealth & safety in farm business management – Swedish perspectives Peter Lundqvist DepartmentofWork Science , Business Economics and EnvironmentalPsychology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Alnarp, Sweden (Peter.Lundqvist@slu.se, www.slu.se/aem)

2. Somebodydies at work • everyweek in Sweden! • 2011……..: • 8 outof 23 (35%) fatalities • ……was a FARMER*! • * 46 – 65 years old (tractors (3), fallingtrees (2), hay bale, feed handling, constructionwork)

3. The Kuopio Declaration* • By the year 2012 – there should be no fatal injuries in Nordic agriculture • Develop national action plans against injuries in agriculture involving all relevant stakeholders in the agriculture sector • Establish and enhance national resource/information and coordination centres for agricultural health and safety * Nordic Meeting on Agricultural Safety and Health, Kuopio, Finland (August, 2006)

4. The Swedish strategy • Collaborationbetweeninvolved stake-holdersofhealth & safety in agriculture • A national program on injury prevention • Coordinationof actions • Knowledge, attitude & behaviour in focus

5. Examplesofinitiatives • A large national program ”SafeFarmers Common Sense” (Säkert Bondförnuft) 2009 - 2013 • The aimwastoreduce the numberofinjures in agriculture by 50 % • A nation-wide system with >140 supervisors (part-time farmers) meetfarmers face toface (farm visits & with a groupof farmers) • Financial support by the European Union (EU) – ended 2013 • A special focus on farms withchildren and/or older farmers • Evaluationofresults by SLU – a PhD dissertation is on it´sway

6. Marketing in Farmingmagazines & newspapers

7. Preventivemeasures on farm

8. SwedishAgriculture: The Ag industry, Authorities Organizations & all involved! A joint mission against injuries in agriculture Now – or never ......!

9. 2013 • Historicfigures: 0 workrelated injuries in Swedish agriculture • The goal from Kuopio declaration (2006): 0 fatalities - wasreached! • The resultof a systematicwork by the stakeholders & the farmingindustry ? • …or a co-incident?

10. 2014 • 2014 & 2015 – at least 8 fatalities in agricultureeachyear (2015 – 3 children) • Less resources and activites by stakeholders • Was it a co-incident with 0 fatalities or is it showingthatagriculture still needsconstant attention, support and activestakeholderstopreventfatalities?

11. Twofurther steps! In order to break new grounds are we now initiating two new initiatives in order to integrate health and safety into the modern professional farming…….

12. Swedish certification standards for work in agriculture • An on-going process is leading to a standard and possibilities to be certified as a work place with healthy and safe working conditions. • The work is coordinated by SigillKvalitetssystem and involves a working group with stake-holders from the whole food-chain as well as health & safety experts. • The first goal is to include companies with field grown crops which often employs seasonal farm workers, mainly migrant workers.

13. The Swedish Centre for Agricultural Business Management • A national Centre affiliated with the Department of Work Science, Business Economics and Environmental Psychology, Swedish Univ. Agr. Sci. in Alnarp • Is lead by a Director, with the Dean as the chair of a Board together with the major sponsors; banks; agricultural organizations and private companies • Has a national reference group (farmers) and an international advisory board is being established

14. The Swedish Centre for Agricultural Business Management • Has a wide definition of business management with the human aspects in focus and with the goal to make the farmer a professional business manager and to make the farm a profitable business • The approach is that the Centre will have a large integrated proportion of injury prevention, work science andwork environment management in research, education as well as in extension services • Health & safety should be a natural and obvious part of modern farm management

15. The Swedish Centre for Agricultural Business Management • Education – improve and further develop the education within the University as well as courses given to stakeholders & farmers • Research – further strengthen the research in this field (an adjunct Professor in Family business management, 3 new PhD students & new research projects) • Outreach – the farmers, the industry & stake-holders (communication expert, project leaders)

16. The Swedish Centre for Agricultural Business Management • We believe this could be one of the solutions in order to make health & safety a top priority among the professional & the future farmers! • An associate professor is being recruited to focus on working environment management on farms • Our approach has been presented for the Government which is now discussing ways of supporting our Centre within their new strategy for food production in Sweden • Started in January 2015 – evaluation after 3 years

17. A Farm = A ”Professional” Workplace&A ”Cozy” Home– needsto be separated from eachother! Questions – comments? ThankYou!

18. A real case – a fence between home & workplace (in Poland)

19. ”The Farm – the best placetogrow-up …ifyousurvive