Promoting Farmer occupational safety and health (OSH) services through Extension
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2021
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Abstrakt
Strategies for improving OSH in European agriculture are urgently required given the
high level of reported injuries and ill health in the sector. The agriculture sector in Europe is
enormous in scale and diverse in production systems. A dispersed labour force is deployed in the
sector, predominantly using family labour, which is self-employed. Accordingly, a large
proportion of the agricultural workforce is outside the scope of EU directives on occupational
safety and health (OSH).The aim of this paper is to examine the role and engagement of the
discipline of agricultural extension in promoting OSH in agriculture and consider methodologies
that this discipline can use most effectively to gain OSH adoption. The paper compares regulatory
and extension approaches to consider their respective roles in promoting OSH in agriculture. EU
developments related to extension and OSH are then outlined. Regarding extension engagement,
findings of a survey among extension and OSH professionals throughout Europe found that OSH
is considered an important topic and worthwhile for inclusion in extension but it indicates that
currently the level of extension programming is limited. Irish data on OSH extension
methodologies indicates that advisors consider that a range of extension approaches are available
to motivate farmers on OSH adoption with TV victim testimonials, on-farm social learning
discussion groups and on-farm demonstrations having the highest preferences. Data presented
indicates that Irish farmers expressed good satisfaction ratings with OSH extension relevance to
their farms. Overall, the study advocates giving more consideration of the role of extension in
promoting agricultural OSH.
Kirjeldus
Received: February 13th, 2021 ; Accepted: April 24th, 2021 ; Published: April 30th, 2021 ; Correspondence: john.g.mcnamara@teagasc.ie
Märksõnad
agriculture, ergonomics, extension, regulation, articles