Contents
7. Health & Safety
Head to Chapter 11 for the printable health and safety checklist
Getting Started
In order to be part of the Gleaning Network, we ask for your group to have the following things in place:
Insurance
As you will be responsible for volunteers, we highly recommend having public liability insurance. Please check the following in your insurance:
- the policy documents explicitly mention volunteer insurance
- check if there are upper/lower age limits
- make sure the policy covers the types of activities like gleaning
Trained First Aider
At least one person attending each glean needs to be First Aid trained. We recommend the one day level 2 first aid qualification ‘Emergency First Aid at work’.
There must be an up to date First Aid Kit at every glean, easily accessible (aka not in a car on the other side of the field).
Risk Assessment
An example of our general risk assessment can be found here. These need to be done for each gleaning day to minimise the risks. Please feel free to use our template, but you will need to create your own.
Injury & Accident log
If anyone on your glean has an accident or injury, no matter how small, it is important to log and record the injury.
Example docs
On the day
Top Tip!
Ask the farmer/grower to guide the volunteers on how to harvest and transport the produce.
Start your day with a safety briefing with your volunteers. Demonstrate how to correctly and safely harvest the produce as any improper techniques can be unsafe and/or lead to injury. Check with the farmer if there are any areas of the land that need to be avoided.
Dangerous tools, heavy lifting & ladders
You may be surrounded by various pieces of potentially dangerous equipment when in the fields harvesting the produce. Make sure to highlight the potential hazards on the farm.
There is likely to be a lot of lifting of crates throughout the day. Demonstrate the correct way to carry heavy equipment in your health and safety briefing.
Some produce (like top fruit) may require the use of ladders. Make sure there is always one person standing at the base of the ladder and that the feet of the ladder are on secure ground.
Useful documents
Appropriate clothing
Advise volunteers to wear appropriate clothing for the weather and terrain
Local hospitals
In case somebody is taken seriously ill or injured, keep note of the local hospital
Health and Safety of Knives
Some produce may require knives to harvest – for instance, cabbages and cauliflower. Children under 18 will not be able to attend a gleaning day where harvesting knives will be used. All volunteers using harvesting knives are required to wear cut-resistant safety gloves.
Before the Gleaning day
- Check you have enough safety gloves for all volunteers, with some spares.
- Sharpen any dull knives
Safety Gloves
All volunteers using knives must wear cut-resistant safety gloves (on both hands).
Volunteers without gloves cannot use knives—instead, allocate them jobs like putting the vegetables into crates and moving the crates to the vehicle.
Health & Safety Knife Talk
Key points you need to communicate:
- Keep the blade down when not in use
- Put protective sheath back on when walking on slippery or muddy surfaces
- Keep three metres away from your neighbour
- Never raise the knife, or swing it around.
- Cut away from yourself
- Never raise the blade above your head
- When knives are not being used, keep inside a clearly identified sturdy container
- Do not put knives down anywhere where they cannot be clearly seen and might be stepped on, or lost in the field.
- Place knives back in their protective sheaths and box the end of the day.
