Widow whose husband died after falling into slurry pit warns of pressure on farmers

The widow of a farmer who died after he fell into a slurry pit has spoken about the stresses facing workers after a rise in deaths.

Margaret Owen said the impact of husband Islwyn's death had been brought back to her once again following reports that a father and son had died in similar circumstances last week.

She said Islwyn had worried about bad weather and recently-introduced rules on slurry spreading when he had fallen at his farm in Bala, Gwynedd, in 2024.

Latest figures from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) show 22 workers died on British farms during 2025-26 - the highest number in a decade.

Margaret said the number of deaths had made it appear "things are getting worse and worse".

An inquest into Islwyn's death found he had fallen into the slurry pit after he had climbed on to a short wall to adjust some machinery at Cefn Bodig farm in Llanycil, Bala.

He suffered asphyxia along with serious injuries to his right arm and chest caused by the machinery, and his body was found by a neighbour 90 minutes after he was reported missing on the evening of 4 September 2024.

Islwyn was pronounced dead at the scene, and his death was ruled as accidental.

Margaret said that, although it had not been the cause of his death, Islwyn had been under pressure because of a combination of bad weather and the Welsh government's rules that banned farmers from spreading slurry between mid-October to January.

The ban on muck-spreading over winter months to protect rivers is something that Wales' environment minister Llyr Gruffydd has said he wanted to change after Plaid Cymru came into power.

"The weather had been wet and there was a problem with mixing the slurry and emptying the slurry before the cattle came in - it was quite a stressful situation," she told BBC Cymru Fyw.

The deaths of Alan Ford, 72, and his son Rick, 42, after they had fallen into an industrial slurry tank at a farm in Chester on 26 August, had brought back memories of her husband's death, she said.

The 22 deaths of workers on farms in Wales, England and Scotland during 2025-26 was the highest in a decade, and second only to the number of deaths of those working in construction (27), according to HSE figures. , external

But the rate of farm deaths was seven times higher per 100,000 workers, and 21 times more likely than the all-industry average.