Safe Farmer Common Sense’ - A National Five-Year Education-Based Program for Prevention of Occupational Injuries in Swedish Agriculture-Background, Process, and Evaluation

Abstract

Background: This paper provides background and a process description for a national initiative (‘Safe Farmer Common Sense’) on prevention of occupational injuries in Swedish agriculture. Methods: This initiative, which received investment funding of 65 million SEK (6.5 million USD) from the European Union (EU) over the 5-year period 2009–2013, was jointly developed by researchers, agricultural organizations, authorities, and politicians. The program had a farmer-centered perspective and included short courses, on-farm visits by supervisors, and a number of education events and awareness-promoting activities. Results: Our analysis showed that the concept was successful, since it involved farmers to a greater extent and prompted a high proportion of these to introduce injury prevention measures on their farms compared with a control group. The analysis also confirmed that these activities continued two-three years after participation in the program. Conclusion: The program was not found to have any major effect on the number of occupational injuries, although the level of occupational fatalities was lower during the intervention period. Thus the investment can be questioned as regards the limited impact on the number of work-related injuries in Swedish agriculture and may have been too short to have a lasting effect.