Managing the risk of an Injury

We’ve identified the common injuries in dairy farming, sheep and beef farming and horticulture and we’ve identified aspects of workplace culture and organisation that can contribute to accidents, injuries and even fatalities. Now, focusing on the five injury areas identified as key concerns:

• Animals
• Vehicles and machinery
• Lifting/strains
• Noise/OOS
• Slips, trips and falls

Here are some tips to help eliminate, isolate or minimise safety hazards on your rural property. As you look at each of the injury areas, think about whether you want to eliminate, isolate or minimise the hazard, and take action accordingly …

Eliminate the hazard – that is remove it from the place of work, if appropriate.
OR

Isolate the hazard – that is isolate the process or adopt a procedure to separate the employee and others from the hazard, eg. placing a guard on a chainsaw, building a locked store shed for agrichemicals.
OR

Minimise the hazard and reduce the likelihood that it will cause harm, ie. putting procedures into place to minimise the effect of the hazard. This could include the use of earmuffs to reduce the effect of noise while chainsawing, or training to improve the level of skills for riding ATVs.