Enhancing Health and Safety in Agriculture: Insights from the "Safehabitus" Project and Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania

The project “Safehabitus”, aimed to strengthen health and security in agriculture. The experience of one of the partners – Vytautas Magnus University Lithuania 

If we ask ourselves which profession in the world is the most hazardous , nobody would probably think about agricultural workers. Those people who provide food that we consume on a daily basis have very hazardous  jobs. Heavy vehicles, dangerous materials, natural conditions, or large cattle are only a few risk factors making their working conditions unsafe. 

Statistics provided by the European Union show that lethal accidents in the agriculture sector are 233% more likely than in other sectors, and the index of other accidents is 18% higher. As indicated by the research, security problems in the agriculture sector could be even more adverse, as many incidents or health problems go unreported. 

One of the important steps to solve this problem was the COST project “SACURIMA”, developed in 2017-2021 by the group of researchers from 33 countries, including those from Vytautas Magnus University. The main goal of this project was to collaborate in trying to better understand security culture and risk management as a preventive strategy in agriculture. Once publicly announced, the research-based problematics was taken into consideration and, for the first time, several calls related to agriculture and its safety appeared in the research and innovation programme “Horizon Europe”.

An international group, based on the previous consortium, has successfully submitted an idea for the “Horizon Europe” call in the Cluster 6 “Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment”, and, from the beginning of 2023, has been developing the project “SAFEHABITUS”. This is an international project intended for 4 years, connecting 20 partners from 13 countries. This big international consortium is lead by the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Agency “Teagasc”. One of consortium’s partners is the Vytautas Magnus University Agriculture Academy, Lithuania. The project assignments are being carried out by three researchers: Dr. Laura Girdžiūtė, Dr. Anastasija Novikova, and Dr. Gediminas Vasiliauskas. The main goal of the project is to strengthen health-and-safety-related innovation systems in farms and to support the EU transition to social sustainability in the agriculture sector.

“Our initiative came from practice. These problems are very clearly shown by statistical information: we can see a very big number of lethal accidents in agriculture, and this tendency continues to grow. On the other hand, real numbers are even bigger, as not all the accidents are included in the official statistics. How can we change this situation? In order to secure health and safety on the farms, it is very important to change the usual practice, apply new methods and develop collaboration-based attitudes”, says one of the project participants, Dr. Anastasija Novikova.

The researcher emphasizes that for submitting of the proposal and the developing of the project, the multi-actor approach is very important. The project “SAFEHABITUS” takes into account a concrete location and attitudes of various project participants: the project involves farmers, health care institutions, trade unions, politicians and scientists from different countries. The researcher agrees that without the multi-actor approach, it would be hardly possible to guarantee an active transnational and interdisciplinary collaboration and to achieve the project goals.

One of the major goals of “SAFEHABITUS” is to create a network of 11 communities of practice (CoPs) that would include farmers and farm workers, farmer organizations, farm councillors, politicians and other related participants. 

According to Gediminas Vasiliauskas from VMU Agriculture Engineering and Safety Department, who is the leader of the Lithuanian community of practice, the main function of these communities is to share practical experience and generate new knowledge and decisions that would improve health, safety and life quality of farmers and farm workers. 

Various communities of practice will be established in Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Romany, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland and Lithuania, and will create an international network of communities of practice covering almost all of Europe. Dr. G. Vasiliauskas points out that in order to improve the health and safety situation in agriculture, it is vital to engage all the interested parties, such as farmers, farm workers, consultants, state institutions, representatives of businesses, politicians and research and education institutions. 

Not less important is to improve the level of information on security and health in agriculture, and to make sure that it reaches all the interested parties; to find out how farmers understand the consequences of their actions for the sector’s future, and, also, for long-term food provision; to explore the potential of social responsibility initiatives and innovations applied in enterprises; to create conditions for safer and more inclusive work environment in agriculture, since the research has found out that agriculture is not considered an attractive work environment in society and among the young people.

The project “SAFEHABITUS” is still in its initial stage, having started less than a year ago, but it has already held several seminars to share knowledge with the society, a summer school and a workshop, and also, initiated  communities of practice. In addition to this, the plans for the future involve providing recommendations and various visual aids and improving their dissemination in the agriculture sector, in order to strengthen health and security, so that statistics becomes less frightening and the sector becomes a more attractive work environment.