The Australian Beef Sustainability Framework (ABSF) has encouraged industry not to overlook the critical role the health and wellbeing of people plays in sustainability, this Farm Safety Week.
An initiative of Farmsafe Australia, the annual Farm Safety Week brings the agricultural community together to place focus on workplace health and safety. This year’s theme is “Recipe for Averting Disaster” and will highlight a number of intangible risks and hazards such as fatigue, complacency, the blurred line between the home and work environment, labour shortages and the aging workforce, wellbeing and other issues that can lead to injuries and fatalities.
ABSF Sustainability Steering Group (SSG) Chair, Mark Davie, said key measures of workplace health and safety had been included as indicators within the ABSF given people are at the core of any industry’s true sustainability.
“Farm safety systems can be as simple or as complex as you prefer, but they only help if you implement and live them,” Mr Davie said.
“Recipe for Averting Disaster is a great theme, it makes me think of those spontaneous jobs that you do not do every day that can present the most danger on the farm, like getting bogged or machinery repair.
“I urge those working in the farm sector to get a Take 5 Safety Checklist book, keep it in the top pocket or the ute and put together a quick Job Safety Analysis – that five minutes could save your life.
“When the ABSF was established five years ago to drive sustainability of the beef supply chain it was recognised that the health and wellbeing of our people was vital to that journey.
“That is why one of the four themes of the ABSF is People and the Community, including key metrics to ensure we as an industry are monitoring our work practices and continuously striving for improvement because one death is one death too many.
“Our definition of health and safety also extends to the life satisfaction of our people, as we know how important this is to families and mental health.”
The 2022 Annual Update reported farm deaths were down based on data sourced from Safe Work Australia. It also showed beef producers enjoy their work. The Global Life Satisfaction Index is another indicator of the People and the Community theme and is calculated based on respondents rating their satisfaction with their “life as a whole” on a scale from zero to 10, multiplied by 10 to give an index from zero to 100. A score of 76.6 was recorded for graziers in 2020 compared to the overall Global Life Satisfaction of Australians of 70.4.
“Farming is not just a rewarding and satisfying profession it is one that is often intergenerational,” Mr Davie said.
“But it is one that does come with inherent risks and the ABSF welcomes Farmsafe Australia’s National Farm Safety Education Fund Strategy which aims to significantly reduce fatalities and injuries in agriculture by 2030 and aligns with the ABSF’s core value of striving for continual improvement in all that we do.
“By prioritising health and safety right across the beef value chain we can ensure Australia will continue to have a sustainable and prosperous industry that produces beef in a way that is truly socially, environmentally and economically responsible and which cares for natural resources, people and the community, and the health and welfare of animals.”
