Farm safety standards to the fore

Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney recently unveiled a €12.2 million safety scheme to assist farmers in upgrading safety standards on their farms. This comes in the midst of a flurry of talk and interest in the area by both safety and farming industry experts off the back of a high number of preventable accidents occurring on farms around the country. Over 2,000 injuries occur on farmyards every year. Of those approximitely 75% are related to machinery.

The grant rate will be 40% up to a maximum eligible investment ceiling of €20,000, ie, a maximum grant of €8,000. The closing date for receipt of applications will be January 9, 2015, and all work must be completed by farmers and a payment claim lodged with the department by August 31, 2015. Read more on this here.

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So, what do required standards look like now?

According to the IFA Safety leaflet 2014 the best way to protect you, your family and anyone working or visiting the farm is to:

Carry out a risk assessment to identify the hazards , potential risks and appropriate control measures.

• Eliminate or reduce the risks by implementing the control measures. 

EVERY FARM MUST PREPARE A SAFETY STATEMENT

The Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 requires that all farmers complete a Safety Statement. Farmers with 3 or less employees can comply with the requirement by adhering to the Farm Safety Code of Practice, completing the Farm Safety Risk Assessment and implementing the appropriate control measures. It is essential that farmers ensure that these safety standards are maintained.

An easy to use online Risk Assessment document can be completed at farmsafely.com. For more information or advice on completing a Risk Assessment document visit any of the following websites: IFA.ie, FBD.ie or HSA.ie.

Training on completing the Farm Safety Risk Assessment is also available from Teagasc and from many members of the Agricultural Consultants Association.

In addition….

SAFETY OF TRACTORS, MACHINERY & EQUIPMENT 

  • Ensure that all machinery and equipment is in safe working order. Consult the operator’s manual. Keep all safety guards in place.
  • Make sure that all operators are competent and work in a safe manner.
  • Always turn off the PTO and stop the engine before attempting to free a blockage. Watch out for bystanders.

It will be inevitable that more stringent safety standards will be introduced across the sector. The question is when and how. Watch this space for more on this topic.

The Camsaw team

 

Tribal Wisdom

We read this and thought it was brilliant so said we would share!

Dakota Indians

Tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians (so legend has it), passed on from generation to generation, says that, “When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.” However, in government, education and the corporate world, more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:

1. Buying a stronger whip.

2. Changing riders.

3. Giving horse and rider a good bollocking.

4. Re-structuring the dead horse’s reward scale to contain a performance related element.

5. Suspending the horse’s access to the executive grassy meadow until performance targets are met.

6. Making the horse work late shifts and weekends.

7. Scrutinising and clawing back a percentage of the horse’s past 12 months expenses payments.

8. Appointing a committee to study the horse.

9. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride horses.

10. Convening a dead horse productivity improvement workshop.

11. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.

12. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired.

13. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.

14. Outsourcing the management of the dead horse.

15. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.

16. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase dead horse’s performance.

17. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance.

18. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses.

19. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses. And the highly effective…

20. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.

Brilliant!
The Camsaw Team 

All our Ploughing pictures!

We want to say a massive THANK YOU to all the people who dropped by to say hi at this years ploughing! And drop by you did! In your thousands! It was such a great few days and proves time and time again how important it is to get out there and meet people and your customers! People buy from people, not companies and that is one thing Camsaw believes in spades so thanks all for making this years ploughing a super few days for us. We featured many of our most popular products including our extensive range of chainsaws, tractor lawnmowers, brush cutters and lots more. We were also delighted to have John Hayes, an amazingly talented chainsaw wood carver wowing people with his work live over the 3 days!

Here are some of our favourite shots!

The Camsaw Team

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Introducing Tom!

DSCF7045Hi all,

Having just about recovered from what was a great Ploughing 2014! You can check out our full album of images on our Facebook page here.

We promised to introduce you to our latest recruit Tom Clear who has recently joined our sales team. To really embarrass him in true Camsaw style :-), we decided to introduce you all to Tom on our blog and ask him a few questions to find out a little more about him!

We are delighted to have him on board. Tom will be on the road introducing Oleomac & Weibang products to valued & new customers all around the country. If you would like Tom to pop into your shop to say hi! Drop us a line info@camsaw.ie

5 minutes with Tom Clear

What do you like to do in your spare time?

I am Secretary of my local GAA Club Clough/Ballacolla and this is where I spend most of my spare time.
Where are you from?/ do you live?
I am from Portlaoise, But live in Ballacolla Co. Laois.
Are you into the garden yourself?
I enjoy working in the garden, I like to see it clean and tidy and well looked after!
Tell us something about yourself not many people would know?
I have 5 County medals for Portlaoise in both hurling and football, I also have a leinster and south leinster colleges hurling medals playing with CBS Portlaoise.
What do you like most about the job you do?
I like getting out and meeting people with all different personality’s and getting there opinion on the industry. I get great pleasure when I can help a customer and I know they appreciated what you have done for them and it leads to a strong business relationship.

Thanks Tom!