Safety is critically important, however farmers are frequently in a rush, taking chances when they are tired and are often hard-pushed to meet deadlines – not rare occurrences in peak season.
“Safety is just so important,” says Kris Bateman, who helped organize a recent farm safety meeting “But we have to keep working at it, to keep it in mind all the time.”
Safety meetings are designed to help farmers keep focused even during the busiest of times and frequently recommend Farm safety signage and first aid kits be widely available onsite. A farm sign and first aid kit can go a long way to prevent the harm of a contractor, visitor, or family member and really should be part of any farms arsenal.
The most dangerous of situations is when we begin to neglect the people around us, unintentionally placing them into a harmful situation. Common sense would suggest that having basic safety weaponry would be the norm, however as it stands there are still a huge number of farms which don’t have the appropriate signage or health systems implemented.
Still not convinced?
Modern agriculture is dangerous ranging from; chemicals and pesticides, temperature, dust, electricity, grain bins, tools, highway traffic, machinery, mud, noise, slips, sun and heat, toxic gases and tractors. Saferfarms.co.nz confirms that 120 people have died from work-related farm injuries on New Zealand farms since 2008, with the sad reality being that many of these could have been prevented.
- Farming has the highest number of accidents & deaths in NZ
- Out of 43 fatalities in 2013-2014, 37 involved vehicles or machinery
- It’s not just your safety, it’s your family, visitors & staff safety
- 220,000 work days are lost annually due to farm related injuries
- Having an unsafe farm can result in prosecution and substantial fines
- Avoid time off the farm by reducing incidents
If you haven’t sorted your health and safety plan – remember there’s no better time than now. Identify your hazards, obtain appropriate signage and first aid and make your farm a safer place to work and visit.
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