The Hidden Dangers on Farms

I think we all recognise that farming is one of New Zealand ’s highest occupational safety risk industries.  What is really scary is that farm kids are also on the high risk list because the family home is so often part of the farm and the kids both help with the farm work and play in the workplace.

Farmers are busy people and they have increasing pressure on them for more and more record keeping.  There are so many systems to comply with that all seem to overlap and confuse.  And why all the fuss when they are doing what they have been doing for years.  Unfortunately the goalposts have changed and the equipment they use is more dangerous.  Something needs to be done.

Our clients tell us that they want a straightforward “no bullshit” method of identifying and minimising safety risks and it needs to take a minimum amount of time.

Enviro Action provides training to help groups or individual farmers to identify and minimise safety risks, then develop simple time effective records to give farmers evidence that they do take “due care” on their farm. 

Farmers want to prevent accidents to themselves, to any one helping them and especially to their families.  Apart from the personal cost of being injured and maybe being off work or even permanently injured or worse, there are very real financial dangers of having an unsafe workplace.  A meatworker recently tripped over a hose while carrying a knife. 

I think we can all see situations where this could happen, but he was awarded $1.55 million dollars.  This is just one example of crippling fines that rural businesses can have if a neighbour, friend or employee injured himself or herself on your farm.

Enviro Action’s straightforward training has a variety of different on and offline options available to allow farmers to fully integrate safety, EMS, Quality and any Codes of Practice or other requirements into one simple system.  Please look at our website

www.enviroaction.com.au