Children on Farms - By Bronwyn Muir

The news this week of another tragic farming accident involving a young family rocks us all to the core. Our heartfelt thoughts are with the farming families and communities of those who have tragically lost loved ones this month.

For the majority of farmers we are now, or have been in the position of, having to manage the dangers associated with raising and working around the care of a young family whilst getting the necessary seasonal work completed on a farm.

The majority of us want our children to experience life growing up on the farm and encourage our kids to get out there, have a go, get a bit dirty, grow independence and learn to love the animals, lifestyle and possibly see a future In farming themselves one day.

Unfortunately, though children bring an extra risk element just by being kids?

Children explore, touch, often don’t notice dangers or risk and make mistakes as they develop their own level of ‘common-sense’.

Farming Parents - let’s face facts our farms are high-risk workplaces most of the time, especially for a little person! We are all constantly doing a risk analysis as we face the new day or task. We need to ask ourselves – is it safe enough for a child? Whether the risk is a body of water, a machine, animal or farm task – how high is the risk of a small person added into the situation?

The OnFarmSafetyNZ team work with many young families and understand that we are working with the critically important ‘next generation’ farmer. We are NOT about banning the kids from farms! We work with whole farm teams to analysis where and when it is appropriate and safe to have kids working alongside and when it would be better to have them supervised in a safer place.

We coach all our young farming family clients through a full risk assessment of farm work related hazards and assist each farming team to document and monitor all their hazards and develop sensible farm policies that are reasonable and practicable – just as the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 requires.

We have simple and easy to understand templates both online and on paper that will assist your health and safety system development and provide clarity for all your farm team around running your farming operation safely.Working with us may save a tragedy.

The worst CAN happen - Gregg Peters

We’ve all heard the saying “It’ll never happen to me”, well unfortunately sometimes it does, and if it does happen the accompanying stress can reach a pretty high level.

So what exactly happens in this situation? If it’s a standard accident then you need to record it, and this isn’t an option, it’s a legal requirement under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 for any business in any industry. Following the accident there needs to be an accident investigation. I don’t mean a hundred page document, but something that details what happened, what was involved, and what caused the accident; but more importantly what can you do to make sure it doesn’t happen again, remembering your duties under the act to take “All reasonable and practicable steps’.

The next level of accident would be one that is serious enough that it requires notification to WorkSafe as per your responsibility under the act. In this instance you need to preserve the scene so that the visiting inspector can get the full picture of what happened. After an initial site visit they will determine whether this is something that requires a more detailed investigation, and if that happens you are in for long ride as they have twelve months from the date of the accident to decide whether they will go ahead with enforcement action.

This is where it is imperative you have some formal Health & Safety documentation. You will be asked to provide a raft of documentation despite WorkSafes party line of “as long as you are talking about it we don’t expect you to document everything” – Wrong;if you have documentation, you are better dressed to weather the storm of a formal WorkSafe investigation, and furthermore that little voice in the back of your head that is saying “Shit what do I do?” or “how do we manage Health & Safety on the farm?” or “How can we prove we have done that?” will be a little quieter.

Don’t rely on word of mouth to manage Health & Safety in your business because it will only work until it’s too late and don’t make “we didn’t think it would happen” a viable defence should you end up in front of a judge.

Be proactive and be prepared.