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Emily Jones, from Herefordshire, has won the 2021 Nick Bird Award, at Harper Adams University, for her dissertation on farm safety. She points out that agriculture, while accounting for just one per cent of the British workforce, is responsible for 20 per cent of all annual workplace fatalities.
The Nick Bird Award was set up by Reading-based Farmex in recognition of the work carried out by Nick Bird, a director of the company who died in 2013. His 17 years of working in the field of real-time monitoring of pig production has had a significant impact on the industry and, increasingly, other livestock sectors.
The Award – a perpetual trophy and a cheque for £500 – is for an outstanding piece of written work that involves recorded observations of an agricultural process, data analysis and interpretation with demonstrable added value for farmers.
Emily Jones, who has recently graduated from Harper Adams with a first-class honours degree in Agri-Business, is passionate about improving farm safety. She said: “I believe that no one should go through the pain of losing a loved one if the circumstances can be prevented which, tragically, is often the case with farm accidents."
She has now joined CXCS, a specialist agricultural compliance business based in Herefordshire, as a trainee health and safety adviser. “My long-term aim is to help improve farm safety, make a real difference in the sector going forward and protect our industry and loved ones against preventable harm,” she said.
"Emily received an excellent response to her survey-based research into a particularly important issue for farmers. She identified the potential to develop a new strategy to improve it through the insights gained from her research. A good piece of work clearly appreciated by the positive comments of her survey respondents," commented Hugh Crabtree of Farmex, the award sponsors.
December 14, 2021 - Farmex
