New occupational health measures to cut fatal accidents in Danish agriculture

Kent Andersen runs a farm with 150 dairy cows in North Jutland and is among a minority of Danish farmers who demands that anyone working on the mini loader wear a safety harness. The risk of a fatal accident or serious injury is too high not to wear one, he thinks.

“If you try to jump off you can easily trap a foot underneath it, and I actually think more people fall off than is estimated. The worst thing that can happen is getting crushed if it topples over,” he says.

The mini loader is an important tool used to move heavy loads around farms, and it is a legal requirement for farmers and employees to use a safety harness when they operate it. Yet a large majority do not use a harness. Only 13 per cent of Danish cattle farmers put on a safety harness before turning the ignition, according to a survey from SEGES Innovation, a private, independent, non-profit research and development organisation that also provides advice for farmers.

Kent Andersen admits he did not always insist on the use of the safety harness. He first became aware of the risk of serious accidents when an employee expressed concern about operating the mini loader. Today, the harness is a requirement at Kent Andersen’s farm, and he has chosen to talk about his experiences in a campaign on the use of safety harnesses in mini loaders which SEGES Innovation is making for farmers.  

Spotlight on three sectors

Falling out of mini loaders and getting trapped under machinery represent some of the most common agriculture accidents and are one of the reasons agriculture tops the list of the sectors that have the highest number of fatal workplace accidents.

The Danish Work Environment Authority's accident barometer shows the number of fatal accidents and the total number of workplace accidents this and last year. Data was collected on 17 August 2023.

43 people died in 2022 in Danish workplaces, the highest figure in 15 years. Between 2021 and 2022, there was also a five per cent increase in the number of workplace accidents reported to the Danish Working Environment Authority. A total of 46,500 workplace accidents were reported in 2022. The number does not include Covid-19-related accidents. 

This sad development has made politicians react. In the summer of 2022, a majority in the Danish parliament agreed on an action plan to reduce the number of workplace accidents. As a result of this political agreement, an expert group will secure new knowledge about the causes behind serious accidents in order to prevent more from happening. 

Campaigns will be launched and there will be a comprehensive drive to improve the three sectors that see half of all workplace accidents: agriculture, transport and construction. 

When presenting the national action plan, the Minister for Employment Ane Halsboe-Jørgensen said it is unacceptable that people could die from going to work. 

“No person should risk their life by going to work in Denmark. Every work fatality is one too many and totally unacceptable. That is why I am happy that all of the parliamentary parties now agree that we need action to prevent such accidents. We have now agreed on a concrete plan of action, and we are naturally focussing on putting measures in place in the sectors where most of the fatal accidents occur,” the minister said. 

From farm owner to business leader

Danish agriculture has in a relatively short time changed from small, family-run farms to businesses with many employees. This change goes some way to explain why agriculture has not come as far as other sectors that have put in place occupational health systems, believes occupational health consultant Per Jørgensen at SEGES Innovation.

Occupational health consultant Per Jørgensen. Photo: SEGES Innovation. 

“Only two generations ago, most farms were run by the farmer himself, together with his wife or a farm hand. Today, far more farms have become businesses and they are much bigger. So a modern farmer runs a business that often has between 10 and 20 employees. This means occupational health and safety must be handled and communicated in a completely different and systematic fashion than farmers have been used to,” says Per Jørgensen. 

He visits and advises many Danish farmers on safety and accident prevention, and his experience is that many really want to secure a good work environment for their employees and that some farmers have created a culture where occupational health and safety is a subject that permeates the way work is organised every day. 

Foreign labour

Labour shortages are one of the things that is both a challenge for agriculture and that can promote the industry's efforts to achieve even better safety for employees, believes Per Jørgensen.

“It is difficult for farmers to recruit people, so a good working environment is an important competitive factor. The labour shortage also means many farm workers are foreign, they speak a different language and are used to working environments where there is less focus on safety."

There are many Eastern European workers in Danish agriculture, but also people from Asia who do not have the same culture when it comes to the use of protective gear for instance. They are not used to being able to approach their superiors to ask about safety either, explains Per Jørgensen.

“That’s why it is extremely important that farmers are very clear about which safety measures must be followed in the workplace, and luckily many farmers have begun this process.” 

Yet there is still some way to go before occupational health and safety measures have been implemented in all companies. All Danish companies with employees are required to hold an annual occupational health discussion, but only a very few do, thinks Per Jørgensen.

“This legally required occupational health discussion is still not very common in farming, to put it mildly. It is a very good way of getting occupational health and safety on the agenda in the workplace, and making this a collective endeavour for everyone,” he says.

Talk about occupational health in everyday work

The insurance company Alm. Brand also encourages farmers to improve planning to cut the number of accidents. The insurer receives many reports about agriculture workplace accidents and believes many of these could have been avoided.

“Every year we receive far too many reports about agriculture workplace accidents. Although workplace accidents cannot be avoided altogether, sadly, more can be prevented,” Alm. Brand stated when the Working Environment Authority presented the latest figures for fatal accidents in agriculture in 2022. The insurer believes some of the accidents are due to people rushing things, changes to work processes and new employees who are less experienced, as agriculture companies continue to grow.

To break the cycle, Alm. Brand recommends that farmers make safety a daily talking point during meetings with employees and that they make safety an issue workers can talk about during the working day just like other ordinary tasks.  

Danish companies have more than double the number of workplace accidents per 100,000 workers than Swedish companies. The 2017 Danish-Swedish research project “Workplace accidents in Denmark and Sweden” looked at possible causes for why Swedish workers are better at avoiding workplace accidents. One of the conclusions was that Swedish employers were good at allowing employees to take an active part in the planning of their working day by expressing their views and coming up with their own suggestions.