Irish Minister presents prizes to the winners of Agri Aware’s Farm Safety First Programme

The group winners of the programme from St Michael’s College in Listowel Co Kerry were Eoin Quilter, Gavin Joy, and Eoghan O'Regan. Participating students were tasked with creating a piece of content that reflected their learnings from the Farm Safety First programme.

The students from St Michael’s College worked together to design a motorized magnetic slurry tank cover. Eoin, Gavin and Eoghan believe that young farmers are more likely to embrace innovative ideas and technology to make farms safer and their design is targeted towards that audience.

Minister Healy-Rae presented the students with their award certificates and a prize of €600.

Speaking at the prizegiving, Minister Healy-Rae said: “Eoin, Gavin and Eoghan and their teacher Rebecca Stapleton are to be congratulated for their work and innovation to improve safety around slurry handling by designing a motorised and magnetic slurry tank cover.

“Slurry is an important resource on our farms, but we must never forget that slurry is potentially lethal, and its storage, handling and spreading are high risk activities which have led to close calls, injuries and unfortunately, fatalities.”

The Farm Safety First programme is supported by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. It aims to raise awareness about the challenges and dangers in farming, promote safe farm practices and provide guidance to transition year students currently working on farms or considering a future in farming.

The programme covers a range of farm safety topics, including personal safety, identifying hazards, livestock safety, and best practices when working with machinery.

The programme has been a resounding success in its pilot year, receiving a wide range of creative entries from students nationwide.

In its first year, Farm Safety First saw over 6,300 students register to participate in the programme.

Furthermore, 35 farm safety workshops were held across the country, complemented by farm safety videos and other resources for students to engage with.

Minister Healy-Rae added: “The Farm Safety First programme makes an important contribution to our efforts to improve farm safety.

“Agri Aware, by engaging with second level students, some of whom will the farmers of the future, have instilled a lifelong culture of farming safely in them and I hope the people they interact with.

“It was a great achievement by Agri Aware to reach over 6,300 students around the country in almost 160 schools in the programme’s first year.

“The success of this programme is that every participating student and their families are winners when it comes to farm safety”.

Commenting on the winners of the Farm Safety First programme, Agri Aware chairman Shay Galvin said: “The students from St Michael's College applied the lessons from the programme in a creative and practical way to address a common danger on Irish farms.

“This is exactly what we hoped to achieve, teaching students to take responsibility for their own safety and make smarter, safer decisions, when they are on farms and to come up with innovative solutions to make farms a safer place for all.

“I congratulate the students of St Michael’s College and their teacher on winning the overall group prize and well done to all students who engaged in the programme across the country.”