In Puglia, fatal accidents in agriculture are equal to 11.3% of the national total, while reports of occupational diseases reach 14%, a sad record for the region with a strong agricultural vocation which needs greater tools for job protection in agriculture. This is what Coldiretti Puglia reports, on the occasion of the World Day for Health and Safety at Work which is celebrated on 28 April, on the basis of the INAIL Report of March 2024 which analyzed the reports of fatal accidents and occupational diseases in agriculture management by region in the five-year period 2018 – 2022.
To modernize the agricultural machinery fleet and make work in the countryside safer, the IT procedure is open until 30 May 2024 – explains Coldiretti Puglia – to fill in the requests for contributions for projects of improvement of the health and safety conditions of workers and to support the purchase by micro and small agricultural enterprises of new and innovative machinery and work equipment to significantly reduce polluting emissions, improve performance and sustainability and reduce the noise level or the risks of accidents, with non-repayable financing of 65% for the majority of agricultural businesses (70 million) and 80% for young farmers aged under 41 (20 million).
To activate more effective inter-institutional synergies for the strengthening of health surveillance – adds Coldiretti Puglia – an agreement has been signed between the Prefecture of Bari, the ASL, the Bari-Bat Metropolitan Area Labor Inspectorate, and CIMALA EBAT Bari and Bat, the Bilateral Agricultural Territorial Body, with the aim of triggering a dynamic advancement in the implementation of the health surveillance to which agricultural businesses are required, taking into account both the peculiar characteristics of agricultural work and the tasks that fall within it, and of the profile of seasonality affecting agricultural work.
Being directed at workers who carry out manual activities, therefore carried out in the absence of specific machines and equipment, which expose them to risks linked to the manual handling of loads, to incongruous postures continued for significant times, to the execution of repeated movements with effects mainly on load on the spine and limbs and risks such as exposure to the sun’s rays and extreme microclimatic conditions, and given that the work activity takes place mainly outdoors, health surveillance must be aimed with particular attention to the analysis of the musculoskeletal system.
It is important to encourage innovation to guarantee an increasingly high level of safety at work in agriculture, but much still remains to be done and for this – concludes Coldiretti Puglia – it is necessary to continue decisively on the path undertaken with simplification interventions , transparency, technological innovation and training, which are able to accompany companies in the ongoing prevention effort. This is why the resources that INAIL makes available to agricultural companies to renew and modernize the fleet of machinery currently in circulation are important.
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