However, working as a Land Search and Rescue volunteer has also seen Logan, who farms 290ha at Waipahi, south Otago, incorporate lessons from his LandSAR training into his risk-management programme.
“I’ve been with LandSAR for three-and-a-half years and over the past two years, in particular, we’ve done a lot of training with the police,” Wallace said.
“That includes Take5, taking a few minutes to plan and think about and discuss what you are about to do and how you are going to manage that and, if you encounter a hazard, pausing to do that again.
“The same applies to farming.
“You take a few minutes before you start a job to think about the best tools or vehicles for the task and conditions and if you encounter an unexpected hazard you stop and consider the best way forward.
“It’s not about paperwork or big formal processes, it’s just pausing and planning and after a while that just becomes automatic.”
Logan leases the intensive sheep breeding and finishing business from his parents, farming 2300 Romney Texel ewes, 700 hoggets and 400 trading sheep.
He farms alone but his father Ross still helps a lot. He’s a member of Clinton Young Farmers and won the national final, in Invercargill, in July.
“There’s a strong focus on health and safety in the Young Farmer events too so I took a lot of learnings from that.
“Growing up, my parents also always had strict rules in place.
“I wasn’t allowed to drive the tractor until I was 12 and then only once they were confident I was well trained and well equipped to handle it.
“I wasn’t allowed to use the chainsaw until I had completed a chainsaw course and safety equipment like chaps, helmets and steel toecaps have always been compulsory.
“The approach to helmets was a bit different back then but we always had to wear helmets when we were learning to ride the farm bikes.”
The major risks Wallace has identified on his farm include vehicles and machinery, particularly tractors, and the steep terrain in some paddocks.
“We always make sure the tractor is set up properly with the correct amount of ballast.
“Before I take the tractor out with a heavy load I plan my route so that I’ve offloaded most of that before I get to the steeper paddocks.
“I’ve got a heavier tractor now but with the older one, with hay bales I’d always make sure I had a counterbalance with a bale on the front and a bale on the back.
“Another of our risks is we have an old belt-drive pump for dipping. We only use it for about two days a year and it has a wooden guard rail but I take further steps to isolate it as much as possible.
“We don’t use contractors a lot but when they are coming on-farm I always have a discussion with them beforehand about what they will be doing, anything I need to know about their work and anything they need to know.”
Wallace has also seen a difference in the requirements for students.
“When I was at Telford we always had to wear helmets at college but it wasn’t compulsory during work experience. Now their students are required to wear helmets on vehicles at all times, whether the farmer does or not.
“I have one student here at a time and when they first arrive I do an induction with them and then I take them around the farm, with a copy of the farm map, and show them all the hazards and discuss how we manage them and we mark the hazards on the map.
“I could just give them a printout with the hazards marked up but I find it’s a lot more real and effective for them this way.
“Then, before any job, we discuss the safest way to do it and they don’t get to use a vehicle or do any task until I’m confident they are ready to do it safely.
“I do take them on the four-wheeler with me when I am teaching them how to drive it because I think it’s safer to show them that way than have them following me on a separate bike. But we stick to a very limited area with some of the paddocks strictly no go and to a strict speed limit.
“They are very keen to try new things but if they don’t bring their PPE with them – like overalls and steel toecaps – they don’t get to do it.
“On occasions I’ve had students sitting out because they have forgotten their PPE. There are no exceptions.”
