IFA is striving to promote global awareness of "Safety First" in fertilizer production and has placed occupational safety and health excellence at the top of its agenda.

IFA through its Technical Committee surveys safety performance in the fertilizer industry by measuring Lost Time Injuries (LTI).

Although, industrial sectors differ significantly in terms of exposure to safety risks and implementation of safety practice, the LTI rate can be useful for gauging performance relative to top global performers in the industry.

Based on a 2008 membership survey based on 2007 data, the industry average LTIR calculated for regular employees is 2.59.

The chart below shows IFA’s estimated benchmark LTI rate as measured over the survey periods:



The Committee’s Working Group on Safety, Health and Environment oversees the design of the survey and the dissemination of the results to the IFA membership.


The management of safety in fertilizer production has changed over time, with recent decades focusing on different approaches:

• 1960s focused on engineering and education,
• 1970s aimed to strengthen regulation,
• 1980s ushered in the development of management systems,
• 1990s sought to optimize employee behaviour,
• and today the focus is very much on risk management.

By and large, the fertilizer industry's safety record is good: the experience from some major accidents in the 1940s led to preventative measures that avoided any accident of a major dimension until September 2001.

Safety handbooks

Title	Languages	Year	Pub Format	Click Link
Safety Handbook. Establishing and Maintaining Positive Safety Management Practices in the Work Place	English	2014	Pdf	Download