All employers have a duty of care to their employees and members of the public who may be affected. They have a duty from the moment you arrive (safe access) to the moment you leave (safe egress), and for all that you do in between. This involves relevant training and information for you to do your job. Health & Safety for Small Business Questions & Answers pdf.

They are to do everything that does not entail excessive costs. All employers with more than 5 employees in their undertakings all have to have health and safety policy. HSE & Business Link Advice

All employers have to carry out a risk assessment (more @ LO7) although those with less than 5 employees don't have to write down the risk assessment.

Good employers consider for themselves the measures they need to manage health and safety in their workplace. When employing 5 or more persons (and these may be at separate undertakings - ie another farm up the road), employers must produce a written health and safety policy. They then translate their policy into safe systems and measures that need to be implemented.

Employers should also

• Provide instruction, training and supervision

Clearly this qualification helps fulfill this requirement of law. However there may also be need to make sure that signs are in languages that all can understand, and there may be specific requirements for certain jobs (see LO 8) 

• Appoint competent persons wherever necessary. For example an employer may appoint a competent person to assist in risk assessment (Level 3 has details on this)

• Consult with employee representatives. This may mean a trade union representative. in farming this is most likely to be somebody from the Rural & Agricultural Workers Trade group of Unit the union. In other cases, it may be somebody elected by the employees directly at work.

All employers with over 5 employees (in any number of undertakings) must have a safety policy. The policy should make clear who is responsible for what. 

Where appropriate, key individuals or their job titles should be named, and responsibilities defined within a job description. This will apply to specialists (eg. herdsmen etc.) as much as to farm managers. In smaller organisations it is even more important as to who does what, in order to not overburden everybody with everything.

The policy should have arrangements that cover the systems and procedures in place for ensuring employees' health and safety. The health and safety policy statement does not need to record the full details of all procedures. Documentation such as risk assessments, training programmes, emergency instructions should record the arrangements and procedures for how these matters are managed.