Who is responsible for health and safety?
Everyone has a role to play in keeping farms safe, with different levels of responsibility.
The primary duty of care falls to what the law calls the Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (or PCBU). The PCBU will almost always be a business and, in the agriculture sector, that will include farmers.
Employees also need to take responsibility for acting in a safe and healthy way.
For example, this means using the right gear, following proper health and safety processes and planning how to do a task safely when a situation changes.
How do you manage your risks?
Businesses need to identify health and safety risks on-farm and do what is "reasonably practicable" to eliminate or manage them.
This includes risks associated with the use of machinery, vehicles, agri-chemicals and the challenges of working safely around animals. You are only responsible for what you can reasonably influence and control.
When is a farm a workplace?
Farmers have a duty to manage workplace risks in the following areas:
- Farm buildings and immediate surrounding areas (whether or not work is going on at the time).
- Other parts of the farm, where work is being carried out.
In those areas you're responsible for the health and safety of your employees and others, and for managing the risks that you can reasonably control. The law is clear that the farmhouse is not a workplace.
What about visitors on farms?
Employees, contractors, vets, and recreational visitors, such as hunters and trampers, can be on your land at any given time.
The approach is just the same for visitors venturing into farm buildings and immediate surrounding areas, and areas on the farm where work is being carried out. In these cases you owe a duty to the visitors, just as you do to your workers.
But, if you couldn't be expected to know that someone is going to be on your farm, it's not reasonable to expect that you have the same level of care for their safety. Also, if someone is on your farm for an unlawful purpose you can't be held responsible if there is an incident.
Where a visitor like a hunter or line worker crosses an area of a farm not being used for work purposes, and not close to the buildings on the farm, then the farmer shouldn't need to take any action.
One exception would be if some work had recently been carried out creating a risk even though no-one was still working there, e.g. recent spraying of agri-chemicals that may still be in the air. In these situations you need to think about how to reasonably manage this for visitors and others.
How does the act relate to staff?
The act also introduces a requirement on all businesses to engage with their workers on health and safety matters. That engagement will vary from business to business, but there needs to be meaningful discussion with employees.
As well as asking employees for feedback on specific questions, all businesses need to have clear, well known ways for workers to raise suggestions or issues on a day-to-day basis.
It doesn't have to be complicated. A morning chat covering off the working day ahead and any risks involved is a great place to start.
Adding health and safety as a permanent agenda item for regular team meetings is another way to ensure employees are involved.
