THE Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has released a free interactive software package to help farmers carry out a risk assessment of their farms and to raise the levels of health and safety awareness in the industry.

The software is aimed at all farmers and farm managers who are responsible for health and safety.

It provides a step-by-step route into learning about what farmers need to do to protect their health and safety and to comply with the law, without being overwhelmed.

Roger Nourish from HSE's Agriculture and Food Sector said: "HSE has produced this self-assessment software to help improve the health and safety record of an industry that has one of the worst fatal accident levels. In the 10-year period from 1994/95 to 2003/04, 489 people were killed as a result of agricultural work activities and several thousand more were injured or became ill.

"This software simplifies the process of risk assessment and is intended to help farmers apply good health and safety practices. We hope farmers will find it a useful tool to help improve awareness of health and safety and so reduce the risk of costly accidents on their farms."

The software can be obtained on CD-Rom from HSE Books, or downloaded from the HSE website at www.hse.gov.uk/agriculture/assessment/.

The website provides further details of the software as well as information on how to get the best use from the package, step-by-step instructions to use it and a users forum.