Health and Safety

Health and Safe­ty is impor­tant but should not over­shad­ow your day. The key is to be aware of the risks and plan around them. LEAF works close­ly with the Health and Safe­ty Exec­u­tive (HSE) to ensure the infor­ma­tion and sup­port we are pro­vid­ing to host farm­ers is in line with HSE guide­lines. Here is some key infor­ma­tion to help you.

• Tell your insur­ance com­pa­ny what you are doing — you need a min­i­mum of £5 mil­lion pub­lic lia­bil­i­ty insurance

• You must car­ry out a risk assess­ment - please use the gener­ic risk assess­ment which incor­po­rates a few spe­cif­ic points to help you iden­ti­fy the haz­ards, assess the risk, take action and con­trol the risks.

• Hold­ing a lamb or stroking a calf are very spe­cial activ­i­ties to offer at your event, but if you have live­stock on Open Farm Sun­day you must take pre­cau­tions to pre­vent vis­i­tors becom­ing ill through dis­eases, such as e‑coli 0157. Please refer to the indus­try code of prac­tice on pre­vent­ing and con­trol­ling ill health from ani­mal con­tact which applies to Open Farm Sun­day host farm­ers. It pro­vides guid­ance, includ­ing case stud­ies, of prac­ti­cal mea­sures that you can apply on your farm to help you com­ply with the law and keep vis­i­tors safe. There is a sum­ma­ry doc­u­ment, full doc­u­ment and teach­ers notes which can be down­loaded from the Vis­it My Farm web­site here. Anoth­er use­ful doc­u­ment to refer to is the Risk Man­age­ment Tool for farm events.

NOTE: A brief swill­ing of hands under the water is not enough to remove bac­te­ria on the skin. Hands must be washed thor­ough­ly using liq­uid soap to make a lath­er all over the hands, rinsed in run­ning water and dry using paper tow­els. So please ensure these areas are ful­ly super­vised and there is lots of signage.

In brief, you must…

• pro­vide hand wash­ing facil­i­ties, sig­nage and supervision

• hand­wash­ing facil­i­ties must have: 

  • run­ning water (can be cold run­ning water in June)

  • liq­uid soap (NOT antibac­te­r­i­al gels)

  • paper tow­els

• areas should be super­vised and vis­i­tors should be remind­ed to wash their hands

• good sig­nage on the farm includ­ing where the ani­mals are, at the hand­wash­ing areas and at any eat­ing areas

• ani­mal con­tact areas must be seg­re­gat­ed from eat­ing areas

• ensure ani­mals have fresh bedding

• walk­ways should be clean, free of soiled bed­ding and fae­cal seepage

• cor­don off muck heaps

• clean off par­ti­tions and gates

• keep view­ing area in milk­ing par­lours clean

• ensure vis­i­tors clean off shoes, pushchair wheels, etc before leav­ing your farm

• fol­low biose­cu­ri­ty guide­lines to safe­guard live­stock health and safety

• If you plan to have trac­tor and trail­er rides, the trail­er must have:

  • a handrail around the trailer

  • fixed seats — bales will do if strapped to the trail­er bed

  • inde­pen­dent brakes on the trailer

  • for more infor­ma­tion down­load the HSE guid­ance: Car­riage of Pas­sen­gers on Farm Trail­ers

How clean should my farm be?

No one is expect­ing it to be pris­tine if you are open­ing for just one day. But you should assess your farm for the risk of vis­i­tors becom­ing soiled. Here are some pointers:

• Seg­re­gate parts of the yard where live­stock will gath­er, such as col­lect­ing yards, and pre­vent access to these areas, as well as manure heaps and slur­ry pits.

• Clear the routes you want vis­i­tors to use and make sure they under­stand that if they con­tact ani­mals direct­ly or hand rail­ings, footwear or soiled clothes, they need to thor­ough­ly wash and dry their hands before eat­ing (see below).

• Where you are con­duct­ing tours of the dairy, for exam­ple, keep pub­lic areas washed down and free of fae­cal matter.

• Where vis­i­tors min­gle with live­stock, clean down gates and par­ti­tions, ensure there is a good lay­er of clean bed­ding on the day, and watch for areas of fae­cal seepage.

• If you have a nature trail that pass­es through a field con­tain­ing live­stock, you should point vis­i­tors to hand-wash­ing facil­i­ties on exit, using signs or super­vi­sion. Do not allow pic­nics in these fields.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion con­tact the LEAF office: 024 7641 3911 [email protected]