Stay safe on farm for Christmas
- Scott Jardine, Economic Development Officer
- Nov 14, 2018
- 2 min read
Agriculture is recognised as one of the most dangerous workplace environments in Australia, with a wide range of hazards and potential risks to life and a track record for high numbers of deaths and near-fatal injuries. In 2017, there were 68 deaths and an additional 179 reported non-fatal injuries occurring on farm, with many of these caused by quads, motorbikes, horses and cattle. Tragically, nine of these fatalities and 22 of the reported non-fatal injuries were children under 15 years of age.
While these statistics are often well understood by farm owners and workers, often this is not the case for visitors from outside of the industry.
Holidays, and especially Christmas holidays bring many visitors to farms to celebrate and experience our fantastic way of life.
It's fantastic to see family and friends, especially when they take pleasure in helping out with many of the on-farm tasks which we can find a bit mundane. Here are some tips and pointers to help them to stay safe on farm and avoid turning a joyous holiday into a tragedy.
Examples of key risks to ensure farm visitors are aware of include:
Quadbikes, Motorbikes, Tractors and other farm machinery
Handling large livestock, in particular Cattle, Sheep and Horses
Biosecurity - make all visitors aware of your Farm Biosecurity Management Plan
The presence of snakes and other wild animals
Staying safe around dams, effluent ponds, creeks and other waterways
Confined spaces such as silos, milk vats and tanks
Fire and extreme heat - Communicate your bushfire safety plan with all visitors
Farm chemicals - ensure all chemicals are stored safely and chemicals cages are locked
Electricity - hotwires, pumps, solar arrays
Shooting and firearm safety
Farm Safety can be greatly improved by following the Work Safe hierarchy of safety controls:
Where possible, remove the risk eg. change how a job is done, store keys to quads safely to prevent unauthorised access, move stock to paddocks where visitors will not have access.
If you can't remove the risk, substitute, isolate or use engineering controls eg. use an alternative vehicle in place of a quad bike, or fitting a suitably designed and tested protective device to quad bikes to reduce the risk to life of rollover.
Set up administrative systems to manage risk - checklists, induction procedures and training to carry out certain tasks.
Use protective equipment such as helmets, gloves, eye, ear and breathing protection and protective boots.
Review controls regularly to monitor their performance. Where a new opportunity arises to implement a control higher up the hierarchy, this control should be implemented.
For information on the Victorian Farmers Federation Quad Safety Rebates:
For further information on farm safety:
Farm Safe: https://www.farmsafe.org.au/
Work Safe: https://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/agriculture
Safe Work Australia: https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au
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