HES challenges for Norwegian agriculture

Chairman, ladies and gentlemen,

Let me start by thanking you for organising this meeting. It is an opportunity for us to share views on the important role of health and safety work in the agricultural sector.

As all here know; farming is affected by a high accident rate, also compared to other sectors as the building and construction industry and the petroleum industry. 

I believe there are many reasons why, but before we start analysing I would like to underline that: 

• Agriculture is a sector in constant development. Both efficiency and productivity is increasing. The degree of innovation is high, and new equipment is constantly being brought into use. 
• Agriculture is also long-term production with varied, interesting and challenging tasks. 

This means great demands towards the individual farmer’s knowledge, skills and efficiency. 

In order to maintain high-quality food production, to exploit forestry resources and to ensure the production of public goods, knowledge and expertise is essential, also with respect to maintaining health, environment and the safety.

In my speech here today I will emphasize challenges as knowledge, cooperation and attitude. And I will present plans in order to do a better jobb in our health and safety work.

Status
In recent years there has been an increased focus on the working environment and health and safety. 

An important reason for the increased focus is the high; I must say too high, frequency of serious accidents.

As a starting point it can be use full to look at the status concerning accidents.

Less than three percent of employment in Norway is in agriculture, but the sector nevertheless has 20-30 percent of the fatal accidents in the working life. The Labour Inspection Authority’s statistics of fatal accidents in working life show that during the period from 2000 to 2009, there were 97 fatal accidents related to work in agriculture and forestry.  

Tractor, machinery and technical equipment accidents are, as for most countries, the dominant cause of death. 

The risk of being harmed by cattle has also increased. Why? 
Maybe larger herds and more joint operations lead to reduced closeness between the farmers and their cattle. The cattle herders don’t know the animals in the same way as before.

In Norway the statistic that indicates accidents are not of good quality. 

• As an example: Accidents where children are involved are not systematically registered, nor are accidents that take place outside of the agricultural property. 
  This makes the picture worse.

Experiences show that the number of fatalities in agriculture is high throughout the western world and that there are great variations from year to year:

• In Norway the extremes during the last decade are 6,5 and 19 deaths for every 100 000 employees, 
• In Sweden the figures varied between 5 and 19 per 100 000 employees.

This is serious accidents that cause death. What about other injuries? 

• Each year approximately a total of 25 000 working injuries are reported.
• But, the Labour Inspection Authority is of the opinion that the total number of injuries in working life is under-reported. My opinion is that there are reasons to believe that under-reporting in agriculture is higher than in other sectors.  

The consequences of accidents are severe for the individual farmers, their families, the farms and society in general. 

Accidents, occupational illnesses and animal tragedies also affect the reputation of the entire industry and may contribute towards undermining the legitimacy of and support for agriculture.  

This is serious. We need to identify challenges and we need action.

Challenges
We have challenges in the health and safety work in the agriculture sector. From my point of view the most important are: 

• Knowledge 
• Attitude to systematic health and safety work
• Cooperation

Regardless of sector, currently there is too little knowledge on accidents and occupational illnesses in Norway and there is reason to believe that available statistics fail to describe the situation accurately.

There is a challenge that there are few in agriculture with expertise on systematic health and safety work.

If farmers underestimate or fail to fully understand the negative effects that occupational accidents have on the operations at the farm, it is not very likely that they will implement measures to improve the safety on their own farm. 

If the advisory bodies and public administration underestimate the negative effects accidents have on an undertaking, there is less likelihood that health and safety measures will be implemented by the farmers.

We have to go 20 years back to find research on agriculture and the working environment in Norway. The last comprehensive research program on the working environment in agriculture took place in 1982-1993.

Positive attitudes towards systematic and practical health and safety work are required in order to reduce the number of accidents. 

Knowledge of accidents and occupational illnesses affect people’s attitude.

Amongst other things, attitudes are also influenced by information, the attitudes of others and communication on the subject.

In agriculture and many other small enterprises, health and safety work is often perceived as time-consuming and unnecessary paperwork that doesn’t provide any immediate financial gain. The effect of such work is questioned, and many are of the opinion that “accidents don’t happen to me”. It may also be the case that agriculture, to a greater degree than the rest of society, has a culture for taking greater risks.

Risk taking attitude may be widespread in the agricultural sector.

The human costs that accidents and occupational illnesses represents are many; Pain, grief, sorrow and suffering amongst the afflicted and the financial costs can be high.  

To establish more positive attitudes for health and safety work among individual farmers it is necessary to have greater knowledge of the negative effects of an accident. 

At the same time there are challenges with respect to attitudes towards health and safety work, not only amongst individual farmers, but also amongst the farmer’s numerous “supporters”. 

Attitude and behavioural changes also take long time. These are aspects that must be taken into consideration in the recommendations for better health and safety work in agriculture. 

Health and Safety work is also important for animal welfare. 

Causes of animal tragedies are diverse: amongst others lack of competence among the animal owner, inadequate knowledge, experience, will, motivation, empathy and health. 

Even animal tragedies that are perceived as sudden, often have a history beyond six months, a history as unsafe animal husbandry.

From other sectors we know that “culture at the workplace” is essential in order to change attitudes. 

Motivation, attitude-changing work and expertise on systematic health and safety work are keywords. 

This is a collective responsibility which individual farmers cannot take on alone. It must be resolved collectively through farmers organizations, advisory services, goods recipients and authorities. 

We need more and better cooperation in the agricultural sector to reduce the number of accidents, occupational illnesses and animal tragedies.

The agricultural sector also needs to learn from other sectors and cooperation between sectors is necessary. 

Actions
Accidents, occupational illnesses and animal tragedies affect the reputation of the food industry and may contribute to(wards) undermining the legitimacy of and support for agriculture. It may also affect the recruiting to the agricultural sector in general. 

We all agree that we need to improve the health and safety work.

We need action to improve knowledge, attitude to systematic health and safety work and cooperation between organizations and other parties with knowledge and roles in the health and safety work in the agricultural sector.

Knowledge
In 2009 the Government put forward a National Strategy for the prevention of accidents causing personal injury.  This is a strategy for reducing the number of accidents that result in personal injuries, both occupational accidents and accidents that happen in other circumstances including everything from traffic accidents and sporting accidents to accidents at home. 

The strategy presents the Government’s ambitions of what it wishes to achieve by 2014 in terms of prevention of accidents resulting in personal injury.

The goal of the strategy is to achieve a better overview and establish cooperation to prevent accidents in the period 2009-2014. 

The strategy is important for the agricultural sector in order to get more knowledge about accidents and occupational illnesses.

The National Strategy mentions in particular the following targets and activities:

• Coordinate and improve the registration of accidents in various sectors
• Ensure high quality of injury data from the Norwegian Patient Records 
• Ensure good availability of injury statistics from Norwegian Patient Records
• Ensure high quality of injury data from the Labour and Welfare Administration
• Strengthen the knowledge on injuries and accidents.

Research is also important to obtain knowledge on health and safety. Research on health and safety in agriculture is therefore prioritized within the framework of the agricultural agreement’s research funds. 

It is also important to strengthen the cooperation with other parties that can fund such research.

Attitudes to a systematic health and safety work
Systematic health and safety work is continuous, planned work with the working environment in order to create improvement.

The farmer is responsible for the working environment and internal control at the farm, and is also the most direct beneficiary of good routines and a functioning systematic health and safety work. 

Systematic health and safety work at the farm is necessary for avoiding accidents and occupational illness.  

In order to be able to and motivated for systematic health and safety work it is necessary to have a positive attitude to the benefits of the work. I have already mentioned that knowledge is important for developing good attitudes. It is also important to have systems that ease/facilitate systematic health and safety work.

Instruments for better health and safety work in agriculture are defined as access to systems, instruction, courses and occupational health services.   

In Norway the Agricultural Quality System (KSL) with a separate health, environment and safety standard is the most important instrument  for systematic health and safety work in agriculture.

KSL is central to improve health and safety work in agriculture. The health, environment and safety part of KSL is a practical tool. 

It is up to the food industry, that’s the recipients of the goods, to decide whether to pursue discrepancies in the KSL health and safety requirements with financial sanctions in the form of price reductions.

I will challenge The Norwegian Agricultural Quality System and Food Branding Foundation (KSL Matmerk) to contribute to ensure that the industry to a greater degree pursue deviations from KSL’s health and safety requirements with relevant sanctions. Work on communicating the use of the KSL health, environment and safety standard to the farmers should be prioritized.

I will also mention that the Food Safety Authority is responsible for inspecting animal welfare. The new animal welfare act that entered into force on 1 January 2010 includes a statutory requirement of expertise with the animal owner. This is intended to ensure that animals are cared for by adequately competent personnel. 

It is also important to have access to the Occupational health services that can provide instruction and advises of how to ensure that the farm is a good workplace in terms of health. 

The government and authorities wish to strengthen systematic health and safety work in undertakings through increased use of the Occupational health services.  

Financial and legal instruments are important for developing a secure agricultural operation. 

The financial instruments are primarily grants handed form the Ministry of agriculture and food to:

• The operation of the Norwegian farmers’ association for HSE services amounting to NOK 16 million in 2010, 
• The Norwegian Agricultural Quality System and Food Branding Foundation’s work with Agricultural Quality System (KSL),  
• Welfare schemes, which includes direct payments to the farmers.

The regulation relating to the use of work equipment is perhaps the most important of the Labour Inspection Authority’s regulations in agriculture. It includes a number of requirements towards farm operations and also applies if the farmer does not have employees. 

There is still room for improvements: There are examples that different regulations and different understandings of the regulations with the different inspection authorities create confusion on what is correct. 

One example is the use of seat belts in tractors for whichneither the regulations nor the understanding of the regulations is coordinated between the Norwegian Public Roads Administration and the Labour Inspection Authority. 

I have therefore contacted the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Transport and Communications with the aim of making the use of safety belts mandatory in tractors on public roads.

At the same time it is important to pursue agriculture's “no accidents vision” with respect to the number of fatal accidents.

Cooperation
There are many parties, both public and private, that have roles and responsibility in the work with health and safety in agriculture. The central private parties are the Norwegian farmers’ association for health, environment and safety services and the Norwegian Agricultural Quality System and Food Branding Foundation. 

As just pointed out, both have large portions of their budgets financed through the agricultural agreement. 

Several other players also provide expertise on why, how and what make systematic health and safety work important. 

My opinion is that health and safety is a collective responsibility which individual farmers cannot take on alone. 

It must be resolved collectively through the farmer’s organizations, the advisory services, the food industry and the authorities. 

I have taken initiative to establish a national cooperative forum for health, environment and safety in agriculture this autumn. I have invited: 

• The Norwegian Farmers’ Union, 
• The Norwegian Farmers’ and Smallholders’ Union, 
• The Norwegian farmers’ association for health, environment and safety services, 
• The Norwegian Agricultural Quality System and Food Branding Foundation, (KSL Matmerk)
• The Labour Inspection Authority, 
• The Norwegian Food Safety Authority, 
• And the insurance sector
   
  to participate.

I want the national cooperative forum to review developments in the health, environment and safety area, assess the effects of implemented measures, present proposals for new measures, coordinate activities in the area and ensure good cooperation between the parties.

The first meeting will be in Septemer/October and I have great expectations.

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Concluding my remarks here today, I think we can all agree that here are numerous reasons for a higher rate of accidents in agriculture than in working life in general. 

Furthermore, I think we all agree that we need more action in our health and safety work.

We have heard “I was just going to…” too many times. 

I hope this Nordic Meeting 2010 on Agricultural Occupational Health and Safety will bring more knowledge, and I have grate expectations to this meeting.

Thank You!