Farm Safety Week 16-21 July

National Farm Safety Week is held to raise awareness of farm safety issues across Australia, as part of Farmsafe Australia members’ efforts to reduce deaths and injuries on farms. This year’s theme, ‘Safe Farms: Fix It for Everyone‘, gives the chance to show how the newly implemented WHS laws emphasise the importance of basic safety for farmers and their workers, families and contractors.

To coincide with the national event, Workplace Health and Safety Queensland is encouraging farmers and other rural workers to focus on controlling the top six health and safety risks for those in the industry. These include quad bikes, tractors, other farm vehicles, unguarded machinery, hazardous manual tasks and lastly animal handling and mustering, which has contributed to three deaths in rural Queensland workplaces over the last year. Some of the core messages to be delivered during Farm Safety Week will centre on these risks, and encourage rural property owners to identify major hazards on their farms, consider solutions to fix the hazards and then take action.

Farm Safety Week will also give farmers the opportunity to discuss safety issues with other family members, workers and contractors and to work together to overcome safety issues.

Workplace Health and Safety Queensland advises that anyone working on a farm – whether family members, employees or contractors – should be made aware of any potential hazards on the farm and what steps are in place to reduce the risks. New or inexperienced workers are particularly at risk, so it is vital that they receive a full safety induction which highlights the workplace’s expectations for safety and limiting risks.

A simple approach that everyone can follow is:

• look for hazards
• discuss potential hazards with anyone involved in farm work
• note down hazards and how you can manage them
• fix it.

For a copy of the Farm Safety brochure (PDF, 2.7 MB), visit at www.worksafe.qld.gov.au. For information on National Farm Safety Week, visit the www.farmsafe.org.au.