The agricultural sector remains one of the most exposed to workplace accidents, due to powerful machinery, worker isolation, and a lack of safety training. In response to this reality, innovative solutions are emerging to reconcile risk prevention with on-the-ground constraints. This article explores the challenges of agricultural accident rates and highlights concrete tools, such as Surus Connect, which support farm operators in achieving better occupational health and safety.
Farmer: A High-Risk Profession
The agricultural sector remains one of the most exposed to workplace accidents.
In 2023, the Agricultural Social Mutual Fund (MSA) recorded 40,778 declarations of workplace accidents or occupational diseases, and 110 deaths related to agricultural accidents were reported, which is nearly one every three days. Men aged 50 to 59 are most affected by these accidents, representing 39% of the victims.
The most frequent non-fatal accidents include:
- The use of motorized machinery, which alone accounts for 20% of these incidents, making it the primary cause of claims on farms.
- Falls (same-level, from height, when getting on or off equipment, etc.);
- The use of hand tools, contact with animals or plants, and risks related to the movement of agricultural machinery.
These figures highlight an urgent need for technical, structural, and educational solutions to prevent risky situations and to mitigate those that cannot be prevented.
The stakes are high in the agricultural sector due to two main factors:
- The variety of activities and machinery, often exacerbated by solitary work and isolated plots
- The lack of time and resources to comply with and train in good safety practices.
Preventing Agricultural Accidents Through Innovation
Beyond automation, predictions, traceability… AgTech solutions contribute to the occupational health and safety of farm operators.
A summary from the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) highlights several direct benefits of AgTech innovations for occupational health and safety:
- Reduction of musculoskeletal disorders through automation and robotization;
- Improvement of work organization with integrated farm management systems;
- Reduction of risks of exposure to dangerous substances and machine-related incidents;
- Better work-life balance, especially for younger generations, who are better trained and more aware.
With the renewal of generations and practices, as well as the tightening of regulatory and voluntary constraints (labels, internal policies…), there is a growing demand from the field for these tools, particularly within labor-intensive businesses: cooperatives, agricultural contracting companies, CUMA employers, and other large agricultural groups. This demand is notably driven by a new generation of farm operators and business leaders, who are aware and many of whom have experienced serious accidents in their surroundings.
Surus Connect: A Safety Solution Designed For and With Farm Operators
Surus Connect is an AgTech company whose mission is to support farms in risk prevention through a digital tool designed in the field, in response to the realities of the profession.
The system consists of a connected button, the size of a credit card to be worn by workers; as well as machine units, which are retrofitted onto the company’s tools and vehicles. The system allows for:
- Rapid Alerting. In case of a serious problem, with their connected button, the user can manually trigger an alert. The trigger is also automatic upon detection of shock, fall, or abnormal immobility.
- Securing Human-Machine Interactions. Thanks to the connected button that centralizes shutdown systems on the worker. Again, this action can be both manual and automatic following the detection of an incident near a machine.
- Supervising Safety. By mapping workers’ exposure to various risk factors (noise, heat, vibrations, high speeds…) to improve the quality of working life and measure progress.
- Raising awareness of good practices. By automatically sending short and targeted safety tips to workers: MSD prevention, machine attention points, seasonal best practices… the objective is to avoid an identified risk.
Given the feedback from its cooperative network and convinced of the on-the-ground need, Fermes Leader has partnered with Surus Connect in the co-development of the solution to address this major challenge: how to protect without hindering the user’s work?
Specifically, the following aspects were developed with partner farm operators:
- Incident detection algorithms, by testing them long-term and collecting training data, to reduce false alarms.
- The relevance and frequency of safety tips, to avoid untimely notifications.
- System ergonomics and energy autonomy, for a minimal workload
What Future for These Innovative Safety Tools in Our Professions?
Driven by regulatory and voluntary constraints, innovative and tailor-made solutions like Surus Connect are set to establish a lasting presence on our farms, by providing concrete answers to secure processes without hindering them.
For a widespread adoption of these new tools, AgTech companies will need to focus on:
- Promoting and disseminating these innovative tools to an audience already highly solicited and often not up-to-date on their safety obligations and existing tools.
- Clearly demonstrating the necessity of these solutions, especially for smaller farms.
- Developing partnerships with manufacturers and agricultural risk professionals (insurance, mutuals, etc.) to equip sectors with lower investment capacity.
Contact Our Experts
Would you like more information? Do you have an innovative project and wish to test it in the field? Do you need user feedback or expert advice?
Let's discuss it!
