Horticulture safety

Title: Farm Safety Workshop in the Goulburn Valley

Mally Pandher:

I'm Melley Pandher, Agriculture Victoria. We are here to run a farm safety workshop for horticulture growers from Punjabi background. The Punjabi farmers are the latest migrants to the horticulture industry in the Goulburn Valley. Lately there have been some near mishaps and fatal accidents in the community, so I thought to arrange some safety workshops to increase their knowledge of safety issues on their farms.

Horticulture industry is a very complex industry.

On a single property you can find production operations going on side by side, the packing integration going on, and the cool store is on the same property as well. So there are different type of movement of the people and the workers. There are tractors, there are ladders, there are people pruning, and the proof is moving to the shed at the same time.

Packing is going on and truck is being loaded and unloaded and forklifts are moving in the shed. So it's a complex on the same properties, not a simple operation. That's why safety is the first and most important issue on horticulture properties. This farm safety workshop is targeted at Punjabi fruit growers here and all the invitees are [inaudible] fruit growers in the Goulburn Valley. This farm safety workshop is being arranged by Agriculture Victoria in coordination with VFF's Farm Safety Advisor from the Making Our Farms Safer program.

John Darcy:

Hi, my name is John Darcy and I'm a Senior Farm Safety advisor for the Victorian Farmers Federation, and I'm one part of the Making Our Farms Safer team. The Making Our Farms Safer project, we're funded through to July 2023, and our services are available to all Victorian farmers free of charge. To create a safe workplace it's important that farmers understand what's legally expected of them and there's a lot to it, so they need to understand they can't achieve it overnight.

It's a journey. And so when we meet with farmers, we guide them through how to tackle things by bit, month by month by month. And that makes it easier for them because it can be overwhelming. There is a lot to do, but they have to do it. And it's so important that they do. And when we sit down with them and meet with them, they create a sense of comfort that they understand what they can do over time.

And so tackling chemical safety for example, in a month they might go and get their safety data sheets, sit down with their workers, make sure they understand how to handle chemical safety safely. And then the next month focus on their machinery, focus on their equipment, and then focus on the manual handing and take those chunks and approach them, break them up so it's an achievable journey. And then once they've done those things, doing it again.

So with our services, farmers can avail themselves of a free safety audit if they have OHS systems in place and we can come and look through their material and see if their material is suitable and fit for the purpose for their business. Most of our time is spent guiding them through and consulting with them. And we provide a lot of resources, free of charge, give them all their templates and also give them the roadmap on how to achieve that, and provide six month follow ups for them to help them on the journey.

And also we do farm safety walk and talks where farmers can avail their farm and a few of their neighbors can come in and we can have a sit down with them as a group and talk about the safety issues of the day as a group, and then do a walk around at that farm and show them what's indicative of what we look for when we do a typical safety walk.

When we meet with employees, we express to them how important it is from a legal point of view that they provide adequate instructions, supervision, and training for their employees and induction for new employees is critically important, because that's training and instruction from day one. And making sure they take employees through their policy procedures, their safe operating procedures show them around the hazards on the farm, make sure that they are ready to go out there and work safely, it’s really really important.

And then also what we teach farmers is how to consult with their employees about safety. And we take them through how to conduct toolbox meetings. We provide scripts for them that guide them through and templates to record their meetings. And that's really important from a legal point of view, because employers have a duty to consult with workers about matters that affect their safety, but many don't know how, and that's where it's important with the service that we're able to provide, where we can guide them through that journey. It's really important for farmers that they instill the right culture in their workplace and with new workers, and particularly for overseas workers, that they assure them that they can come with confidence.

That's part of consultation, making sure that they know about issue resolution and also telling them "Don't be afraid. We want to know. We want to hear". If the farmer doesn't know there's a problem, then that's the next hazard waiting for someone else to get hurt. That they instill their confidence and assure the workers that they're not going to be prejudiced. They're not going to be, there's not going to be any repercussions. They want them to come and tell them about things that are not right.

Text on video:

For help with farm safety contact:

Making our Farms Safer - 1300 882 833 www.makingourfarmssafer.org.au

Worksafe Victoria www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/agriculture

Making our Farms Safer is funded by the Victorian Government to provide all Victorian farmers with support and resources to improve health and safety on farms.

agriculture.vic.gov.au/about/agriculture-in-victoria/smarter-safer-farms

Title: Putting safety first in horticulture

Jagit Singh:

My name is Jagit Singh, and I'm the orchard manager here. This is a family-run business. Just last year, we had Work Safe come out. They went through all the equipment to make sure everything was up to standard, basically, to the current environment levels and their standards. They gave us a list on what needed to be rectified, and then, we got it all done. They came back out and it was all right to go. Basically, they ticked everything off, everyone's happy, we comply.

Since 1995, when we come onto the property, that was the first time they'd actually came out. Before then, we were just relying on our own methods. We have a program with food safety certification, so we just followed their guidelines. Basically, that's how we manage all the safety on farm.

Basically, as soon as I walked into the shed, they seen an ATV.

Didn't have any rollover protection on it. So they jumped on that one straight away. So we had to get a roll safety bar fit on the rear of it. And they seen a few tractors that didn't have roll rollover protection. So we had to just focus on mainly they were the main issues, a few chain guards on the packing machinery. So basically I demonstrate to all the employees and this is how they should be lifting, how they should be doing all their jobs that they're being allocated to do. So once I give them a physical demonstration, we focus on just reviewing on seeing what they're doing, and if we're happy with that, then we keep going. I think the most important is to make sure they have a good understanding on what the actual requirements are around safety. Cause I think the safety has changed a lot in the past 10-15 years, new machineries come into play higher horsepower tractors.

It's just been a general overhaul of the whole system. What people probably thought before that was actually compliant, is not compliant now. So basically that's what I've picked up and I think they should just really need to get someone there and just make sure everything's correct. Because a normal farmer wouldn't know what's actually compliant these days, unless they have the extensive training on what they need. Simple things that people can do is get advice firstly, on what their operation actually needs. So basically we have a instruction booklet for all our employees that start. We do for physical demonstrations on basically when they pick fruit. So we tell them how to use a ladder correctly, how they should be placing the picking bag around their shoulders and how they should be putting fruit into those bins. Basically it's a hands-on experience, kind of what would you say just demonstrating how to actually make things happen.

If you're running a safe operation, I think everyone would be happy to come work on your farm. So if there's no rollover protection that's seems like an unsafe farm, there's grass everywhere, it's going to be hard for the new people to come on board to want to actually work on that property.

Horticulture is a complex business. We have ATV's, tractors, motorbikes, and heavy machinery passing through all the time. Trucks, so forth unloading and loading a lot of pickers on the ground. Pruners, a lot of ladders out in the fields where people are climbing up and down on having said all that, safety is the number one priority.

Text on video:

For help with farm safety contact:

Making our Farms Safer - 1300 882 833 www.makingourfarmssafer.org.au

Worksafe Victoria www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/agriculture

Making our Farms Safer is funded by the Victorian Government to provide all Victorian farmers with support and resources to improve health and safety on farms.

agriculture.vic.gov.au/about/agriculture-in-victoria/smarter-safer-farms

Title: Putting safety first in horticulture

Gurmeet Singh:

My name is Gurmeet Singh, and I'm the owner of this property. We grow pears, apples, and most, about 60% of apples, 70%, about 30% of pears.

When I do something, I always make sure everything should be right, use the machinery just make sure all the moving part is covered, like PTOs and the tractors, you know. Put the seatbelt and whatever we need to do, we doing because in these days some accident happen, and when you know that it's sad story, especially this quad bike.

This is the most dangerous machinery in the farm, because they've gone too fast, very quickly, and most of the orchard is dirt, dirt tracks, and just slip pretty easy. And to make sure to teach the guy who never ride, never drive, should be careful. I'm just not giving my quad bike to anybody, even to my kids, said, "No," and that's, I think, is the biggest, dangerous vehicle in the farm.

If they work on the ground, then we show them how to operate and just watch them most of the time and try to acclimatise the situation for first day, second day, and once we see they are all right, ready to go, they can handle, then we keep going. Then, we keep peace of mind.

I use myself most of the time, all the spray, and my son, they got all the chemical certificates to understand what's the harmful chemicals can do. We got a special lockup shed and nobody enter that there, because most of the time we lock it up. When we mixing, we put the gloves, we put like safety, all the safety equipment, but because in these age a tractor is pretty safe, and when we spray, we jump into the cabin.

Text on video:

For help with farm safety contact:

Making our Farms Safer - 1300 882 833 www.makingourfarmssafer.org.au

Worksafe Victoria www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/agriculture

Making our Farms Safer is funded by the Victorian Government to provide all Victorian farmers with support and resources to improve health and safety on farms.

agriculture.vic.gov.au/about/agriculture-in-victoria/smarter-safer-farms

Title: Putting safety first in horticulture

Jasminder Kaur:

My name is Jasminder, and this farm, I'm living here since 1981. Oh, safety is most important in the farm, for the chemical, for the worker, and for the machinery, and then when we come here, like long time ago, then the machinery was different, but is now the machinery is more faster, more...

The big engine and the new tractor, new technology, and we must have to understand before we driving the machinery. And if anything, you can read about the machinery, and safety is most important in the farm. My message is most important.

Everybody working, it doesn't matter who is coming, who's working, the owner and worker, everybody should be very, very careful, and keep good listening, whatever your owner is saying, the worker should be listening. Whatever we got message from the government or any safety management, we must be follow them.

Text on video:

For help with farm safety contact:

Making our Farms Safer - 1300 882 833 www.makingourfarmssafer.org.au

Worksafe Victoria www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/agriculture

Making our Farms Safer is funded by the Victorian Government to provide all Victorian farmers with support and resources to improve health and safety on farms.

agriculture.vic.gov.au/about/agriculture-in-victoria/smarter-safer-farms