The Code was adopted by an international group of experts meeting in Geneva from 25 to 29 October 2010. It was endorsed and approved for publication by the Governing Body of the ILO at its 310th Session (March 2011). Download the Chinese version

This Code is devoted to improving occupational safety and health (OSH) in agriculture. It complements the ILO’s Safety and Health in Agriculture Convention 2001 (No.184), and its supplementing Recommendation (No.192), and provides further guidance for their application in practice. Its provisions are based on principles contained in Convention No. 184 and many other ILO Conventions and Recommendations.

Objectives

• to raise awareness of the hazards and risks associated with agriculture and promote their effective management and control;
• to help prevent occupational accidents and diseases and improve the working environment in practice;
• to encourage governments, employers, workers and other stakeholders to cooperate to prevent accidents and diseases;
• to promote more positive attitudes and behaviour towards occupational safety and health in agriculture throughout the sector;
• ensure that good workplace health and safety practices are applied to all workers in the workplace regardless of age or gender.

Woman in a rice field. City of Chengdu, China

Agriculture employs some one billion workers worldwide, more than a third of the world’s labour force, second only to services. Agriculture is the largest sector for female employment in many countries, especially in Africa and Asia, and accounts for approximately 70 per cent of child labour worldwide.

Agriculture is one of the most hazardous of all economic sectors and many agricultural workers suffer occupational accidents and ill health each year. It involves a wide range of different types of machinery, animals, plants and products, and agricultural enterprises range from subsistence farming to highly mechanized large scale businesses.

The Code establishes a national framework specifying the roles of the competent authorities, employers, workers and their organizations and contains specific provisions for identifying and addressing the main hazards and risks in the sector.

Did you know?

Agricultural production involves the generation of a variety of dusts and biological exposures that present potential hazards to the health of workers. These include vector-borne diseases and parasitic infections in the agricultural environment. Parasitic worms, or helminths, are the source of such infections as ascariasis, dracunculiasis, elephantiasis, hookworm, lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, schistosomiasis and trichuriasis. These are extremely debilitating diseases common in poor rural areas. Human hookworm infection, for example, is a soil-transmitted helminth infection that is a leading cause of anaemia and protein malnutrition in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, South-East Asia and China.

Codes of practice

ILO codes of practice are intended for the use by both the public and private sectors with responsibility for safety and health management in relation to specific occupational hazards, sectors of activity, or equipment. Importantly, codes of practice are not intended to replace national laws or regulations or accepted standards.