Safety still an issue for Australian agribusiness

Those in the agribusiness sector provide a huge contribution towards the wider outlook of Australia. Without their work, everything from local food production to a raft of export business would be negatively impacted.

To that end, keeping those in the industry in the best of health and out of harm's way is an imperative issue that isn't lost on the Australian government. Safe Work Australia - which is backed by federal support - is tasked with regularly assessing the sector and ensuring that health and safety standards are up to scratch.

Accident and fatality rate in agribusiness

Unfortunately, of late at least, their findings have been less than satisfactory. The number of workers deaths in the category of agriculture, forestry and fishing totalled 46 in 2014, with a further eight recorded through this year so far.

Only transport, postal and warehousing as a sector suffered more fatalities than agribusiness over the course of the last 12 months. While the fatality is by no means acceptable, it is perhaps explainable as many of those incidents involved vehicles in the logistics sector, out on some of Australia's notoriously dangerous stretches of outback roads.

There is a link with agribusiness here, however, as many of the incidents that cause serious injury involve vehicles. Lexology contributor Cameron Dean of McCullough Robertson Lawyers noted that the accidents involving everything from cars to quad bikes form one of the main causes of fatality within the sector.

Minor accidents involving machinery and vehicles specific to agribusiness do of course happen. Limiting their fallout can be critical when it comes to keeping operations going. The appropriate farm insurance is a must, as the right policy can replace any damaged equipment as quickly as possible, ensuring that any downtime is kept to an absolute minimum.

In time, both the psychological and physical injuries from lesser accidents will heal, but fatalities will never be acceptable in any workplace. The remit of Safe Work Australia is to get as many of the quoted statistics as close to zero as possible.

Workplace health and safety in the future

Safe Work Australia's plan to do this revolves around its Australian Work and Health Safety Strategy 2012-2022. In the document, the authority outlined agribusiness as a key area in which safety and best practices must be improved.

There are a number of strategic outcomes Safe Work Australia hopes to achieve across the next seven years, but the most prominent are as follows:

• Healthy and safe by design. Work processes across agribusiness should be better designed from the ground up to eliminate risks.
• Supply chains and networks. Those in the industry must understand their priorities, with more done by industry leaders to promote a positive health and safety message.
• Health and safety capabilities. Everyone within the workplace from facilitators to trainers to managers must know their work health and safety responsibilities.
• Leadership and culture. Organisational leaders should foster collaboration and progressive thinking when it comes to developing best practices.
• Research and evaluation. More must be done to identify the causes of negligence, and provisions put in place for those who don't take workplace health and safety seriously.
• Government. The federal government should do more to reinforce legislation - with particular reference to farm liability in the case of agribusiness.
• Responsive regulatory framework. The action taken when any new laws are introduced should be swift, keeping red tape to a minimum.

While the guidance provided by Safe Work Australia is there for individuals in the industry, it has to be put into practice across agribusiness. Ensuring that all staff are aware and up to date with health and safety practices can go a long way in reducing the fatality rate across the sector.