A leading charity is urging those living and working in the farming sector to take care in the heat. As the 10th annual Farm Safety Week gets underway and, as temperatures are high, the Farm Safety Foundation warns of immediate risks for an industry that already has the poorest safety record of any occupation in the UK.
Working in agriculture means spending a lot of time outside; meaning you receive around 5-10 times the yearly sun exposure compared to people who work indoors. However, a survey of agricultural workers undertaken in 2017 found that more than half of the respondents recognised that protecting themselves from the sun was ‘very important’; although over 25% said they ‘hardly ever’ use sunscreen.
Whilst construction workers have the highest number of fatalities due to sun exposure, working in agriculture is second highest and accounts for 23% of these deaths. That’s around one farm worker every month dying from skin cancer due to sun exposure.
