Safer farms a shared commitment

Kiwi farmers have earned a solid reputation as innovators and drivers of change.

New Zealand's economic health depends on agriculture.

Agricultural production and processing generates about 16 per cent of our gross domestic product, providing jobs for a similar proportion of the Kiwi workforce.

Agriculture, in turn, depends on the health of its producers to ensure the Kiwi economy continues to prosper.

But there's a serious problem with health and safety down on the farm -- and it is a problem going almost unrecognised.

In 2013, 20 people were killed working in agriculture, making it our single most dangerous occupation.

To put this number in perspective: the rolling average of workplace fatalities is around 75. Agriculture, therefore, represents more than one in four of those deaths.

This death toll continues to create a terrible burden for farming families, communities and businesses. I'm sure most Kiwis agree we need to do more to make farms safer places to work.

That's why health and safety regulator WorkSafe New Zealand -- the new body I lead -- has been directing a lot of its energy into a multi-year, multi-focused Safer Farms programme. The details will be announced later this year.

We have shaped the campaign in conjunction with key sector players. They include leadership groups like Federated Farmers, farm owners, farm workers and influencers such as the stock and station agencies, fertiliser providers, banks and rural community leaders.

WorkSafe NZ believes the future success of Safer Farms will depend on a partnership approach. We believe a climate of collaboration can lead to many benefits and opportunities.

But the feedback we keep getting from farmers is that they don't want Wellington breathing down their necks. Fair enough. But I remind you of the death toll in agriculture -- just because it's worked the last 100 times doesn't mean you won't get caught out next time.

Farmers are the ones who know best how to run their businesses. We get that. But farmers have to get that their health and safety performance is, frankly, woeful.

WorkSafe NZ will stand alongside the sector, supporting and educating but farmers must understand we will enforce when we see non-compliance.

Safer Farms will NOT be a series of recitations of the statistics. It will be a lot more about fostering genuine action on the part of those directly involved to make a significant dent in the rural death toll. The agriculture sector has the same obligations as any other workplace to take safety seriously.

We urge leading players like Federated Farmers to face up to the problem; own it; work to eliminate it; and act in the interests of every farmer and farm worker. For some, that is going to be a challenge.

Worksafe NZ is optimistic that the sector is up for it. This is a sector with a long and proud tradition of grasping the nettle of change.

Over more than a century, Kiwi farmers have earned a solid reputation as innovators and drivers of change.

Look at the dramatic shift in the way the sector produces, processes, markets and transports food products compared to a few decades ago. Farmers now produce the same amount of sheep meat today as they did in the early 1980s -- but with around half the number of sheep.

WorkSafe NZ is therefore confident we'll see some of this can-do spirit directed into improving health and safety on the farm.

And we are ready and willing to join forces with the sector. We were created in 2013 with the single focus of leading the country to a new, improved, effective health and safety system.

We have a mandate to lead the effort to bring down our national workplace death and injury toll by at least 25 per cent by 2020. We believe a fully developed health and safety system on every Kiwi farm will help make that goal a reality.