Safety first reduces on-farm risks

According to Alive and Well, almost 5500 farmers have been injured at work over the past three years.

Further, according to Safe Work Australia, since 2013 the “agriculture, forestry and fishing” industry category was the second highest workplace industry - after transport, postal and warehousing - for worker deaths.

It is ahead of other industries including construction, mining and manufacturing.

As such, the need for top safety measures is of vital importance to help reduce on-farm accidents.

NSW/ACT agent for OnGuard Safety Training, Trevor Goodear, Wamberal, said it was important for farmers and their employees to have access to safety training to ensure risk control measures were in place.

OnGuard Safety Training is an online system for farmers and agricultural workers, and Mr Goodear said the training also assisted farmers to know what areas of safety training they had covered, and what still needed to be addressed.

Onguard Safety Training, which has a focus on education training, officially launched the farm safety training element last month.

Mr Goodear grew up on a farm in Merriwa, worked with the steel works in Newcastle, and taught industrial arts for 34 years.

He said training could be accessed on PC, tablet, mobile phone,which was useful for time-poor farmers.

"We are very aware the rural community is very diverse in terms of its size, so it is not uncommon for farmers to work by themselves, and working in isolation sometimes," he said. "We are providing a resource in knowledge, as well as being able to track what has been done, and also of course training hasn't been done."

Agriculture training sessions range from quad, farm vehicle and farm tractor safety, harvester safety, working with silos and grain handling, hazardous chemicals, power equipment and livestock.

"Our aim is to focus on the farmer's needs; we are very aware individual farmers have individual needs."