On Farm Safety: Regulations vs Implementation

[Blaithin]

I took some training at work this week. Every time I take training through work it makes me wonder how there aren't more serious injuries and even fatalities on farms. Farmers seem to plug along with "doing things the way they've always done" and "We'll just be careful" and hope that those approaches will always pull them through.

Of course, it doesn't. Annually you'll hear of serious injuries and deaths, most of which could be prevented. In any other industry here, many would have been, but regulations for agriculture aren't so strict.

For example, here, "Farms and ranches with at least one waged, non-family worker are covered by the basic safety standards set out in the OHS Act." Meaning any "family" farms that don't have any waged employees are under no obligation to implement OH&S standards. Not that I would say many farms with employees really follow OH&S standards.... When compared to what other jobs have to do regarding protocols and training... it's a shocking gap considering the danger farming can be.

It seems some younger farmers here are implementing some things, primarily because a lot of them have worked in the oil patch so have exposure to comprehensive safety programs. Doesn't mean they have the same level of safety going on at the farm as there is in the patch, just that they're more cognizant to hazards.

Some major areas of neglect that I've noticed, in no particular order, include:

- Fall protection when working at heights.
- Confined Space
- Emergency Response Preparedness
- Lock out, Tag Out


Which makes me think, in other countries, what is the status of on farm safety?

In the UK, are farms always under OH&S regulations or, like here, are they only applicable after a certain point? If there aren't regulations that are required to be followed, are farmers doing anything independently to try and increase safety? Has anyone noticed any holes around the farm where they think they could improve safety?

What about other countries? Please hold while I tag some globalists.... @Dead Rabbits, @Farmer Roy, @Kiwi Pete, @FonterraFarmer.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Sounds very similar to here in many ways.

We have "Worksafe" as our version of OSHA, it's a big job on our farms.

One of the key issues is how we deal with lone workers having accidents out in the field, for example I largely work here by myself and there's a good 4000 acres where my cellphone won't send a text, let alone hold a call for a minute if I get into trouble.
One distinct difference here is that with the formation of ACC - accident compensation corporation - we gave up our right to sue.

But it's a minor detail as employers still get smashed when workers get injured, and perhaps even worse for recreational users of farmland, eg hunters, workers families etc.

The loophole is limited to instances that applied to our old farm - as I was working off-farm we were exempt from paying ACC levies as I was contributing as part of the taxation from my pay from that job, otherwise yes we pay levies and yes we get lined up by Worksafe.

So many farm hazards fall into the minimise category as risks can't be eliminated, however the basics (have good gear, put good tyres on the gear, use your head) usually work pretty well towards ensuring people out there are safe and come home.

Missing is the notion "oh we're too poor to afford safety" as that simply doesn't wash, we would be a damn sight poorer paying fines after burying a mate and other than a few old codgers who pride themselves in getting round in unsafe machines with rooted tyres, things are kept relatively modern.

My workaround is I supply all my own gear from truck to chainsaws to farmbikes and keep most of the gates off the road well secured, it's a big place with oodles of places to fall off and you could sit there for weeks/months without being found. I just have to be a little OTT when it comes to inductions and point out most of the tracks aren't really very good for 4 wheeled vehicles in ideal conditions - it has the spinoff I get a lot of hunting done.

Other types of farming eg grain, I am not interested in and haven't done, there's usually the annual grim tale of someone drowning in a silo or falling off a truck rolling back a cover.
Feel things have improved immeasurably in the past 20 odd years but still have a way to go, as I said at the top, the hazards we face just can't all be eliminated

 

[Dead Rabbits]

To my knowledge most farms will not be subject to OSHA regulations. Either that or they don’t bother with us. They certainly don’t touch the Amish construction crews either.

I am however all about raising awareness of the hazards that exist on a farm or elsewhere. Training is always a good thing, I’ve seen death at work and it’s not an experience I’d like to repeat. To me it’s a large weight to carry, having others in your care. I don’t want to be the reason they died, and I don’t want them to get injured or die either. I want them back home with their families with everything attached.

I am not however, in favor of any government regulating workplace health and safety.

 

[box]

Health and safety initiatives are an excellent way to reduce profitability, reduce efficiency and sadly it stops the dense ones from killing themselves. (Western) society as a whole is becoming stupider because of such rules and regulations.

Common sense is gone.
Personal responsibility is gone.

If some tit is dumb enough to put his hands where he shouldn't, or dumb enough to roll his tractor/bike/whatever and gets maimed or killed, the first question that gets asked is "who can we blame?".

You can cross you t's and dot your i's all you like, but when the sh!t hits the fan, WorkSafe will happily legally rip you to shreds (at the taxpayers expense) and then fine you a 5 or 6 (or 7?) figure sum for your "failures".

Look at the f*ck up that was the White Island court case.

It's the reason why I do not, and will not **ever** employ staff.

/rant.

Back on topic....

Having an up to date hazard register, accident register and emergency plan has recently become mandatory for Fonterra farmers wanting to pass their "Co-operative Difference" assessment.

Having an up to date health and safety plan has been mandatory for GAP accreditation for the horitculture industry for years.

Insurance companies are also asking for this stuff before you take out any business liability cover.

For the most part, nothing is enforced, very few systems are put in place and health and safety is almost unheard of on small scale farms. You'd be in deep sh*t if Worksafe did a spot inspection (or caught you in the act doing something unsafe) and you didn't have something in place.

 

[Blaithin]

So I'm definitely not pro add in government regulation. We just had a federal health and safety audit and one of the requirements was we needed tampon dispensers in washrooms Definitely not really a productive and necessary aspect of jobs.

Nor do I really appreciate the beaten to death "safety culture" BS that corporations push. It's full of paper work and breeds redundancy and therefore complacency so nobody really does nearly the degree of "safety" that they like to pretend there is at board meetings.

Also not at all saying that jobs should be eliminated to reduce risk. Jobs need done, just in today's day and age I think we should be smart enough to put a bit more effort in to be safe. Common sense is not a reliable safety precaution in many instances of accidents, things can just happen.

What I think is missing is down to earth approach of self implementation - ideally this would be general enough that it could reduce incidents and head off the government trying to get in and regulate ag more. Because that's going to happen, there can't keep being injuries and deaths and not end up with regulation and paper work. So why not try and be responsible and head it off.

To expand on what points I'd mentioned earlier...

- Fall protection when working at heights: Primarily this is in regards to grain bins, but also roof top work and possibly even on to equipment (eg. loading the drill up with seed and fertilizer). Engineer options are becoming more common place here, stairs instead of ladders up bins for instance. Pay more and get a cage around the ladder to climb up the bin. Or purchase a harness and lanyard set and climb the bin safely. Harness and lanyard also works for any rooftop work. Who hasn't heard of someone falling off or through a roof. On top of the drill add a guard rail (if it doesn't already have one) or an anchor point and use your harness. Fall restraint saves lives and prevents life altering injuries.

- Confined Space: Grain bin entry. Sump/well pit access. Tank access. Get an air monitor, test the air quality, wear the monitor while you're in the space. This alone is probably enough to save people but if you've already got a harness for your fall restraint, use that and tie off too, it's a multipurpose tool.

- Emergency Response Preparedness: Have a muster point. Have a document with emergency numbers and location ID. Recently I became aware that STARS, our air ambulance, has a direct phone number we can call them at. This saves the time of calling 911, them deciding if maybe STARS would be required, them contacting STARS... instead you get straight to them and they're on their way and are in contact with you as they fly. Saves so much time. You can also have them come out and assess your farm and choose a landing site and an alternate landing site. This gets your location in their system and assigns you a number so in case of an emergency you don't have to try and give directions, you give the number and they know where to come and where to land. I really don't know why this isn't promoted to farms out in rural locations, especially considering our ambulance issues here.

- Lock out, Tag Out: I always recall a local farmer who's combine broke down so the mechanic came out to work on it. The issue was in the hopper so that's where he was. Farmer came out some time later and assumed the mechanic was done and gone. Jumped in the combine and started it. Mechanic lost his arm. A basic lock out, tag out approach of taking the keys out the vehicle would have prevented it. Placing them in a lock box that the mechanic had the key for would have ensured no issues.

In corporate safety world these things all come with copious amounts of paper work but that doesn't mean they need to. The supplies can be purchased privately and, with just a quick internet browse, for well under $10,000, probably even under $5,000 depending on what jobs you do, you could get basic equipment to help ensure safety all on your own.

For Kiwi Pete's examples of working alone in remote areas with poor service, also an issue here, I know of people who use small satellite GPS for travelling out in the backcountry. You can send messages and it relays your location in case of issues. There's no reason technology like this can't be used for check ins and in case of emergencies. They're not overly expensive.

All these things, and more, seem to be overlooked because they're not thought of, not known of, or a big one I hear a lot, "I don't have time to do that. When I want x job done, if I don't have the safety equipment with me I'm not going to take time to go get it, I'm just going to do the job." Ok, that's fair. And then one day life changes.

Various training can be done by third party companies, you just need to find it and pay the fee. Again, corporate safety gives a timeline of renewal; 1 year, 2 year, 5 year, but even if someone just goes once that can be very eye opening.

It will be interesting to hear from others and see if, like you three, and like pretty much all the farmers I know, safety is presumed more than practiced.

 

[Blaithin]

The training I had this week was my 3 year Confined Space renewal. The instructor has this stat sheet from NIOSH where they surveyed 1000 fatalities in confined spaces in the US.

The big 3 that are absolutely shocking are that 0% of them tested the air quality before entry, 0% had any kind of rescue plan, and 60% of deaths were attempting rescuers.

These aren’t things that need regulations to do, they aren’t things that take a lot of time to fix, they’re just things that people need to know of.

 

[kiwi pom]

Sounds very similar to here in many ways.

We have "Worksafe" as our version of OSHA, it's a big job on our farms.

One of the key issues is how we deal with lone workers having accidents out in the field, for example I largely work here by myself and there's a good 4000 acres where my cellphone won't send a text, let alone hold a call for a minute if I get into trouble.
One distinct difference here is that with the formation of ACC - accident compensation corporation - we gave up our right to sue.

But it's a minor detail as employers still get smashed when workers get injured, and perhaps even worse for recreational users of farmland, eg hunters, workers families etc.

The loophole is limited to instances that applied to our old farm - as I was working off-farm we were exempt from paying ACC levies as I was contributing as part of the taxation from my pay from that job, otherwise yes we pay levies and yes we get lined up by Worksafe.

So many farm hazards fall into the minimise category as risks can't be eliminated, however the basics (have good gear, put good tyres on the gear, use your head) usually work pretty well towards ensuring people out there are safe and come home.

Missing is the notion "oh we're too poor to afford safety" as that simply doesn't wash, we would be a damn sight poorer paying fines after burying a mate and other than a few old codgers who pride themselves in getting round in unsafe machines with rooted tyres, things are kept relatively modern.

My workaround is I supply all my own gear from truck to chainsaws to farmbikes and keep most of the gates off the road well secured, it's a big place with oodles of places to fall off and you could sit there for weeks/months without being found. I just have to be a little OTT when it comes to inductions and point out most of the tracks aren't really very good for 4 wheeled vehicles in ideal conditions - it has the spinoff I get a lot of hunting done.

Other types of farming eg grain, I am not interested in and haven't done, there's usually the annual grim tale of someone drowning in a silo or falling off a truck rolling back a cover.
Feel things have improved immeasurably in the past 20 odd years but still have a way to go, as I said at the top, the hazards we face just can't all be eliminated

Slightly off topic but has Starlink and One NZ started up yet? Supposed to be at least text coverage everywhere, isn't it?
Might be an idea if it does.

 

[kiwi pom]

Health and safety initiatives are an excellent way to reduce profitability, reduce efficiency and sadly it stops the dense ones from killing themselves. (Western) society as a whole is becoming stupider because of such rules and regulations.

Common sense is gone.
Personal responsibility is gone.

If some tit is dumb enough to put his hands where he shouldn't, or dumb enough to roll his tractor/bike/whatever and gets maimed or killed, the first question that gets asked is "who can we blame?".

You can cross you t's and dot your i's all you like, but when the sh!t hits the fan, WorkSafe will happily legally rip you to shreds (at the taxpayers expense) and then fine you a 5 or 6 (or 7?) figure sum for your "failures".

Look at the f*ck up that was the White Island court case.

It's the reason why I do not, and will not **ever** employ staff.

/rant.

Back on topic....

Having an up to date hazard register, accident register and emergency plan has recently become mandatory for Fonterra farmers wanting to pass their "Co-operative Difference" assessment.

Having an up to date health and safety plan has been mandatory for GAP accreditation for the horitculture industry for years.

Insurance companies are also asking for this stuff before you take out any business liability cover.

For the most part, nothing is enforced, very few systems are put in place and health and safety is almost unheard of on small scale farms. You'd be in deep sh*t if Worksafe did a spot inspection (or caught you in the act doing something unsafe) and you didn't have something in place.

If you think it's only the stupid and those lacking common sense who die at work you've led a VERY sheltered life.


I think with farm H&S you have to differentiate between the "one man band" and those employing staff.
You'll never stop an owner operator doing something stupid or cutting a corner if they've made the decision to do it, no matter how many bits of paper you make them have.
Not acceptable if you employ staff or have contractors on farm though.

How do you reward the businesses who do spend the time and money and punish those who don't? Cutting corners is giving them an unfair advantage after all.

 

[box]

If you think it's only the stupid and those lacking common sense who die at work you've led a VERY sheltered life.

Well I'm sorry you disagree, but I'm rather stubborn and stuck in my ways. I've come across and seen my fair share of accidents, unfortunately every single time I'm left shaking my head and wondering what on earth the person was thinking.

Re-read my above post. I also said personal responsibility. The ACC "Have a hmmmmm" ad campaign is brilliant - if more people took that approach to life (stopping and thinking before acting), the world would be a better place.

From my experience, the self employed owner/operator is more likely to work in a safe way, because they've got more skin in the game and more to lose than the cack-handed half-wit on wages who can break a leg and then sit at home with full pay from sick leave or ACC.

If we have a look at this list, we see that the majority of fatalities on farm lately have been caused by vehicle rollovers. Is a stringent health and safety policy likely to have prevented these? Probably not. Hi vis, helmets and day/week long health and safety seminars likely wouldn't have made a jot of a difference.

Just yesterday, my neighbours heifer decided to come down and visit me. Before long, macho man the neighbour was down, screaming and shouting, waving his big stick and charging all over the place on his shiny new quad bike. An accident waiting to happen if I ever saw one, but it's OK because he's from a "big" farm, he's had his quad bike training and he had his half high-vis overalls and helmet on

If he did come off and break his neck, what would be the first question that Worksafe would ask? "Who can we blame?". "Who can we fine?". Poor knob-end the worker would probably be asking the same questions - if he survived.

How do you reward the businesses who do spend the time and money and punish those who don't? Cutting corners is giving them an unfair advantage after all.

Punishing efficient operators while rewarding those who insist on being overcomplicated and reliant on incompetent staff? What a great idea.

 

[DanielBennett]

Hmmm. Is that no one from the UK has contributed to this thread an indication of how seriously health and safety is considered here?

 

[box]

Hmmm. Is that no one from the UK has contributed to this thread an indication of how seriously health and safety is considered here?

Maybe everyone started dozing off just thinking about it.

 

[RushesToo]

x.com

x.com

The same a @Blaithin 's silo examples, every one avoidable, every one someone didn't go gome.

 

[DrWazzock]

I go on the courses. When loading a lorry you are supposed to drive up to the lorry with the bucket low, raise it up while parked with the hand brake on then extend boom and tip it over the side. In reality we tend to raise the bucket as we are moving approaching the side of the lorry because if we didn’t the whole loading operation would take so long that no haulier would come here. The reality is that time is money but it’s taking time that helps with safety. So what are we supposed to do? Insist that everybody who takes short cuts is prosecuted so that everything here becomes so expensive that it’s even less competitive with imports and we all go out of business.
Then the lorry driver should really stay in the cab, not help sweep up but again if he doesn’t help then the job takes longer and as we know, time is money. If he stays in the cab he isn’t getting any exercise and he’s not talking to anybody so his mental health suffers.
Really most things are a compromise to some extent and common sense is needed. You certainly need to keep your wits about you and there’s no room for complacency or stupidity.

 

[Blaithin]

Hmmm. Is that no one from the UK has contributed to this thread an indication of how seriously health and safety is considered here?

Give them the benefit of the doubt and say it was posted at an awkward time.

But given the few responses... it's the exact same as here.

Accidents only happen to stupid people.
We don't need government regulating us into doing things.
We don't have the time to slow down and be more careful.

And @RushesToo posts a list that shows that, just like here, slowing down and taking initiative to rely on safe practices more than "Don't be stupid" would prevent a lot of incidents and perhaps stave off regulation.

 

[wr.]

We were disbudding calves last week, the day after shearing. During both tasks, I remarked that if we'd done a serious risk assessment before hand, we'd not be doing either job.

 

[Blaithin]

We were disbudding calves last week, the day after shearing. During both tasks, I remarked that if we'd done a serious risk assessment before hand, we'd not be doing either job.

Livestock is hard. There's a reason it's the hardest and highest insurance to have. Even with my work with livestock I struggle to see ways to improve safety.

Most of it comes down to facilities. Make them so as little time is spent in with the animals as possible and escape is easily accessible. This is how feedlots work and for the most part animal related injuries were minimal considering we were handling hundreds of animals a day.

Of course a big infrastructure change is extremely cost prohibitive in a sector that typically boasts the lowest profit margin. It's not like livestock farms can go out and buy a couple harnesses and an air monitor and knock out 80% of their risk.

 

[DrWazzock]

We were disbudding calves last week, the day after shearing. During both tasks, I remarked that if we'd done a serious risk assessment before hand, we'd not be doing either job.

I think shearing big tups is one of the most dangerous jobs on the farm.

 

[devonbeef]

some is mistake , created by using equipment that is not up to the job or poorly maintained equipment, both of these are strongly caused by poor farm returns, if there was the proper amount of money in the job , servicing would get done quicker, things mended rather than the over stretched farmer putting it on his very long list, pressure at harvest times ,lack of money to pay for labour and encourage labour(no money to pay a expected wage) Bottom line is cheap food costs ---LIVES We do these jobs instead of getting othersin because it is the only way. I think really we should down tools and let population starve instead of risking our family's lives and ours we being pushed to far.other reason i don,t doubt but on working farms this is a main one i would say.

 

[wr.]

I think shearing big tups is one of the most dangerous jobs on the farm.

We had a Dorset ram a few years ago which proved impossible to shear. All the shearers used to have a go and used to call it The Great Dorset Challenge. Finally sold the bu99er in the wool.

 

[DrWazzock]

It really would help if machinery was designed with maintenance in mind rather than seeing how tightly they could fit it all together leaving no room for access to remove worn parts etc. Hydrualic hoses are quite difficult in this respect. Difficult to inspect and replace. It’s also the case that suppliers of the original parts for some systems went bust years ago but designed a special part that’s very difficult to source now. This happens with electronic boards etc, that if safety critical, can render a machine unusable. Don’t get me started in PTO guards. Every size and combination under the sun for would probably be covered by three sizes if there’d been any standardisation at all.