Friday, July 21, 2017
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THE INDEPENDENT VOICE OF MID CANTERBURY
Shift in farm safety culture BY COLIN WILLISCROFT
COLIN.W@THEGUARDIAN.CO.NZ
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Labour’s fighting spirit
Attitudes on farm towards workplace safety have come a long way, despite a call for a culture change by WorkSafe New Zealand, Federated Farmers president Katie Milne says. Milne said farmers were more actively involved in encouraging safe practices on their farms than ever before, and to imply otherwise was misleading. WorkSafe’s April 2012-March 2015 farm sector analysis shows farm assistants, labourers and agricultural workers were more likely to suffer injuries at work than self-employed people. For every 1000 employees in the agricultural sector, 20 suffered an injury requiring more than a week off work, compared with 12 out of every 1000-self-employed individuals. WorkSafe’s agriculture sector lead Al McCone said the data underlined the importance of farmers talking with everyone who works on the farm
– employees, contractors and family – to ensure they were aware of risks on the farm and the best ways to manage those risks. “A simple way to positively change the culture is to get workers more involved with farm decisions around health and safety. “It’s the workers who are out there in the paddock or shed, seeing first-hand what the conditions and potential risks are.” However Milne said farmers have already made great strides towards making the agriculture sector a safer place to work. “Attitudes have definitely shifted and awareness levels raised,” she said. “I’ve been bloody impressed. There’s been a real shift from the grumpy ‘do I have to’ type of attitude
to farmers now thinking and talking about safety issues on-farm before they even know they are doing it. “There has been a culture change and it will continue. “Everyone is a lot more aware of their responsibilities. Some are more ahead of the game than others but change is coming through.” However, Milne did agree with McCone that it was important to continue to encourage more communication between farmers, farm managers and farm workers. She said building more health and safety components into agricultural training courses, so that they were automatically part of people’s thought processes rather than something they just ticked the box for later, was another area that deserved greater consideration.
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