According to the Health Service Executive's Statistics on Fatal Injuries in the Workplace in Britain 2015 report, some 33 workers in the agriculture industry died in Britain in 2015. This figure includes 14 employees and 19 self-employed workers.

Four members of the public also died in accidents relating to the agriculture industry in this period, bringing the total number of deaths for this sector to 37, making agriculture the third highest sector for deaths in the UK between April 2014 and March 2015.

The rate of fatal injuries for agriculture in Britain therefore stands at 8.04 per 100,000 employees and 10.12 per 100,000 self-employed.

Overall, the provisional figure for the number of workers fatally injured in Britain in 2014/15 is 142, and corresponds to a rate of fatal injury of 0.46 deaths per 100,000 workers. The figure of 142 worker deaths in 2014/15 is 9% lower than the average for the past five years (156).

The latest rate of fatal injury of 0.46 compares to the five-year average rate of 0.53.

The HSE report also says there were 102 members of the public in Great Britain fatally injured in accidents connected to work in 2014/15.

Service industries had the highest number of fatal accidents for Great Britain workers in this period, with a total of 51 dying in this sector. This was followed by construction with a total of 35.

As regards comparisons with other countries, the standardised rate of fatal injury for the United Kingdom in 2012 was 0.58 per 100,000 workers, and compares to a three-year average rate of 0.67.

The UK rate for 2012 was considerably lower than the corresponding EU-15 rate (1.3 per 100,000) and that of many other EU member states, including Ireland (1.43) and the large economies of Germany (0.9), Italy (1.29), Spain (1.99) and France (2.64).

Thirty-three deaths in agriculture in Britain in past year

There were 33 fatal injuries to workers in agriculture in Great Britain between 1 April 2014 and 31 March 2015, the same as the five-year average for deaths in this sector.