Agricultural Health and Safety Survey in Friuli Venezia Giulia

Sirio Rossano Secondo Cividino, Gianfranco Pergher, Nicola Zucchiatti and Rino Gubiani
Additional contact information
Sirio Rossano Secondo Cividino: Department of Agricultural, Food, Environmental and Animal Sciences, University of Udine, via delle Scienze 206, 33100 Udine, Italy
Gianfranco Pergher: Department of Agricultural, Food, Environmental and Animal Sciences, University of Udine, via delle Scienze 206, 33100 Udine, Italy
Nicola Zucchiatti: Department of Agricultural, Food, Environmental and Animal Sciences, University of Udine, via delle Scienze 206, 33100 Udine, Italy
Rino Gubiani: Department of Agricultural, Food, Environmental and Animal Sciences, University of Udine, via delle Scienze 206, 33100 Udine, Italy

Agriculture, 2018, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: The work in the agricultural sector has taken on a fundamental role in the last decades, due to the still too high rate of fatal injuries, workplace accidents, and dangerous occurrences reported each year. The average old age of agricultural machinery is one of the main issues at stake in Italy. Numerous safety problems stem from that; therefore, two surveys were conducted in two different periods, on current levels of work safety in agriculture in relation to agricultural machinery’s age and efficiency, and to show the levels of actual implementation of the Italian legislation on safety and health at work in the agricultural sector. The surveys were carried out, considering a sample of 161 farms located in the region Friuli Venezia Giulia (North-East of Italy). The research highlights the most significant difficulties the sample of farms considered have in enforcing the law. One hand, sanitary surveillance and workers’ information and training represent the main deficiencies and weakest points in family farms. Moreover, family farms do not generally provide the proper documentation concerning health and safety at workplaces, when they award the contract to other companies. On the other hand, lack of maintenance program for machinery and equipment, and of emergency plans and participation of workers’ health and safety representative, are the most common issues in farms with employees. Several difficulties are also evident in planning workers’ training programs. Furthermore, the company physician’s task is often limited to medical controls, so that he is not involved in risk assessment and training. Interviews in heterogeneous samples of farms have shown meaningful outcomes, which have subsequently been used to implement new databases and guidelines for Health and Safety Experts and courses in the field of Work Safety in agriculture. In conclusion, although the legislation making training courses for tractor operators and tractor inspections compulsory dates back to the years 2012 and 2015, deadlines have been prorogued, and the law is not yet fully applied, so that non-upgraded unfit old agricultural machinery is still being used by many workers, putting their health and their own lives at risk.

Keywords: work safety; health and safety; risk prevention; risk assessment document; ROPS; safety belt (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/8/1/9/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/8/1/9/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:8:y:2018:i:1:p:9-:d:125826

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().