Step up for farm safety

“About every three weeks someone dies onfarm and although workplace fatalities in NZ have been trending down in the last five years, in agriculture it’s been trending up,” she said at the Dairy Women’s Network (DWN) Stepping Up Safety dairy module in Balclutha on December 1.
“The most common cause of injuries in dairy farming, according to ACC, in the last seven years is dairy cattle and secondly motorbikes and dairy farmers are more likely to be injured in August than in any other month.”
She said although many farms had systems and policies in place, it was implementing them that was important.
“Pike River had excellent safety systems but they weren’t being used. Don’t let your farm be like that.”
Although the regulations for the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, which is scheduled to become law on April 4 next year, are still to be approved by cabinet, farmers should start now to change the way they do things, she said.
“The main change with the new act is that it focuses on the workplace as a whole and it spreads responsibility throughout the chain between employees, owners and directors.
“It makes it clear that you are not able to contract out of your responsibility. No one will be able to delegate it to the farm manager or a contractor.”
Only advisors and independent directors and trustees won’t be liable.
More legislation will be passed to exclude farm.
Recreational users of a farm, such as a school camping there or someone hunting pigs, aren’t the responsibility of the farm owner or contractor.
“Also, no duty will be owed to those who come on to the farm for unlawful purposes.”
Children are allowed onfarm but shouldn’t be allowed to use or drive machinery unless they are over 12 and are a family member, are supervised, have been fully trained and are unpaid.
Documenting health and safety has become more important.
“You document every other part of your farming business such as tax and budgets so why shouldn’t you document health and safety,” McLeod said.
Recommended documents included accident and near-miss reports, emergency plans, farm maps with hazards and no-go zones marked, a hazardous substances register, a plant and equipment maintenance register and staff training records.
She said Fencepost Meetings, where employers and staff regularly meet to discuss health and safety onfarm, were becoming important under the new legislation.
“Health and safety is not something that can be done in an office, put on the shelf and ticked off a list.”
WorkSafe New Zealand Otago health and safety inspector Lynn Carty said WorkSafe was visiting farms to engage and educate.
“Enforcement is at the bottom of the list.
“We don’t want to tell you how to farm, we just want to help you find practical solutions to manage risk,” Carty said.
“And we always phone first. We are never going to turn up out of the blue.”
“When we visit, farmers often pull out a folder and there’s lots of paper in it but no one has read it,” WorkSafe Otago health and safety inspector Sharon Cox said.
She said the new act was not going to instantly make people safer on farms.
“It will be a cultural change and it may take up to 10 years for there to be a shift in how people do things but there will come a time when you will feel uncomfortable about not doing something the right way, like driving your car without the seatbelt on.”
Carty said all accidents resulting in serious injury should be notified to WorkSafe within 24 hours by phone on the 0800 number and within seven days in writing.
“What is a serious injury is still not really clear in the legislation yet. But if in doubt it’s better to report it.”
Further information, contact details and forms are available on the WorkSafe website www.saferfarms.org.nz