Saferfarms campaign the key to reducing accident and injury

Federated Farmers says Saferfarms campaign the key to reducing farm accident and injury rate

Federated Farmers hopes the Saferfarms campaign will provide an impetus to getting farmer attention on farm safety.

WorkSafe is launching its Saferfarms programme throughout provincial New Zealand during the next few weeks, starting today at Lincoln.

Federated Farmers Health and Safety Spokesperson Katie Milne says the rate of accidents on New Zealand farms is far too high.

“Farmers work in an intrinsically dangerous outdoors environment. There are natural hazards, large animals and powerful machinery,” she says.

“But too many farmers just take that risk for granted and don’t do much or anything to reduce that risk. We have a bad culture towards our safety in this country. I hope that Saferfarms’ information and help with actual farm situations will have farmers taking it on board and reducing the number of farmers and their workers being injured or killed on farm.”

Katie Milne says an approach of identifying hazards across the farm and how to deal with them is a major step forward.

“I’m pleased we are hopefully getting away from what has almost become an obsession about helmets on quad bikes and the thinking that wearing one means your safety worries are all sorted,” she says.

“It’s not just quad bikes, nor even machinery. Farm animals are dangerous. Just because they don’t have sharp teeth to eat you, doesn’t mean they can’t knock you about. WorkSafe figures show there are more than 1,300 dairy animal and very nearly as many sheep and beef injuries a year from animal contact. We can do things about that.”

“The real key to getting farm accident rates down is to systematically identify where the risks are, in particular places and the way you do things. You then can do something to make these things or places safer, like consciously deciding never taking a vehicle there. Then you make sure that you don’t lapse back into the old habits.”

Katie Milne says Federated Farmers will be working together with WorkSafe to coordinate on farm workshops in different parts of the country during the next few months.

“The idea is for WorkSafe to help farmers in a practical way. I see it as a two way education programme. WorkSafe people are experts in safety and farmers are experts in farming. We need to learn from each other.”

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