Frequently Asked Questions

General Information

Farms are the most dangerous workplace in Ireland. Farm Family CPD’s online training is suitable for all generations on the farm family over 12 years of age including employees and non-paid farm workers over 16 years of age.

  • Running a Safer Farm for Farm Principals
  • Keeping Yourself Safe for Over 65s
  • Keeping Yourself Safe for 12–16-year-olds
  • Keeping Yourself Safe for Employees and Non-Paid Farm Workers
  • Managing Dangers – Livestock, Machinery & Buildings – Essential Safety for everyone living and working on the farm

Farm Safety is a personal and collective responsibility. It is critical/essential to keep you, the farmer, all members of the family unit safe and farm workers safe, healthy and well.

Continuous Professional Development (CPD) is a commitment to ongoing lifelong learning. CPD courses are a great way to enhance, refresh and update your knowledge and skills. Farm Family CPD training courses offer farm family members the opportunity to focus on farm safety. This training will provide an opportunity to review existing knowledge and attitudes to risk and take an improved approach to farm safety.

Online training courses (eLearning) are convenient, offer flexibility and bring education right to your home. With the internet available on phones, tablets and laptops, online courses are not restricted to desktop computers; courses are configured for all types of devices.

eLearning helps participants retain and remember information with the use of videos, relevant images, easy to read fonts, animated videos and more. Real-life examples are also used to explain ideas and concepts. Displaying information in well-crafted ways lead to better understanding and better retention of learning content.

Farm Family CPD is funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine under the EIP Initiative, aims to deliver online farm safety training. For the first time, training is available not only for the principal farmer, but specifically for the vulnerable age groups. When you register for the courses on our website https://www.farmfamilycpd.ie you will receive an email with login details within 24 hours giving you access to the training courses

When you register your interest at www.farmfamilycpd.ie you will receive an email with login details and instructions on how to log in within 24hours.

Ideally you would look to get a unique email for every member of the family. They can then register their interest on our website at www.farmfamilycpd.ie and be allocated the appropriate course.

If you give your email address on the Registration of Interest Form on the website for someone else, you would then be enrolled in multiple courses to ensure that all members of the family can participate.

  • Free training for all generations living and working on the farm.
  • Enhance your ability to identify and reduce dangers and risks encountered every day on the farm.
  • Prioritise safety on the farm.
  • Identify and change at least one personal behaviour to improve safety on your farm.
  • Plan and improve ongoing aspects of farm safety.
  • 12–16-year-olds can develop a plan with an adult family member to address key risks on the farm.

Farms are the most dangerous workplaces in Ireland. Take a two-generation farm family at a moment in time when parents are 55-65 years and children are 25-35 years with no history or experience of an incident resulting in a farm fatality or life changing injury. Move forward fifteen years and review the same family again. It has now become a three-generation farm family with grandparents aged between 70-80 years, parents aged between 40 and 50 years and children aged between 0 and 15 years.

The pace of farming has increased dramatically and accidents can occur at any time. Continuous awareness, risk assessment and keeping safety at the top of the priority list is required.

No, but it was developed with accreditation in mind and this may be looked at again at a later stage.

Topics will be covered in bite size units and for e-learning the unit duration is typically 3 -12 minutes. Course duration varies depending on the course. Participants can work at their own pace. Running a Safer Farm for Farm Principals may take up to 1 hour to complete while other courses may be completed in 45 minutes.

In line with the norms of today, education requires flexibility. Users can log on, partially complete and return in their own time and at their own discretion to the same place on the course.

Farm Family CPD Training is free of charge. We would like to acknowledge the funding provided by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine under the EIP Initiative.

Launching Farm Family CPD, Minister of State Martin Heydon, Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine said: “We must use every tool at our disposal to generate behavioural change on farms and make them safer places. The use of e-learning will allow this project to reach hundreds of farm families with health and safety training. It also recognises the multi-generational nature of Irish farms and will include all farm family members from the very young to the older generations in the learning process. We have a strong family farm structure in this country, and we must maximise the different channels of influence to really affect attitudes towards farm safety.”

The European Innovation Partnership Scheme funds projects that allow farmers, scientists, and other experts to collaborate to develop new practices that are environmentally friendly and economically sustainable. The aim of these innovation partnerships is to road-test new ideas and practices which can then be used more widely by farmers and others to improve productivity and enhance resource efficiency. https://www.gov.ie/en/service/18a855-european-innovation-partnership-scheme/#what-the-european-innovation-partnership-scheme-is

No checks will be made and the training is solely for the benefit of the farm family.

Not at present.

Close captions and transcripts are provided on videos for ease of viewing.

To turn on (or turn off) captions or subtitles while viewing a video, click the CC button in the player’s bottom toolbar.

If you need special assistance when using the online platform, please contact Bernadette, the Project Coordinator on email info@farmfamilycpd.ie

‘I don’t have time to complete training’.

‘I have always performed farming tasks in the same way and never had an accident’.

‘That won’t happen to me, I am an experienced farmer!

There is no such thing as a safe farm, only a safe and responsible approach taken by farming people consistently to eliminate where possible and reduce the risks associated with farming. All farm family members need to be involved in keeping themselves and others safe. Training is a key part of achieving behavioural changes within the farm family unit and

creating an adequate farm safety culture. Inaction can lead to farm family members being exposed to unnecessary risks and dangers.

Farm safety is a dynamic issue, not a static issue. People living and working on farms continuously interact with livestock, machinery and farm buildings.

General Information following Registration of Interest at www.farmfamilycpd.ie

General Information following Registration of Interest at www.farmfamilycpd.ie

Prior to commencement of training, you will receive an email log in details to activate your account and access your learning content.

There is no obligation on families at any stage to complete the Farm Family CPD Training, not dismissing the obvious importance of farm safety and benefits of participating and completing this training.

Contact Bernadette, Farm Family CPD Coordinator on email info@farmfamilycpd.ie

A digital Certificate of Completion will be issued on completion of training.

Your digital Certificate of Completion will act as a log of Continuous Professional Development (CPD).

eLearning helps participants retain and remember information with the use of videos, relevant images, easy to read fonts, animated videos and more. Real-life examples are also used to explain ideas and concepts. Displaying information in well-crafted ways lead to better understanding and better retention of learning content.