Fedrated Farmers: Saving on costs but at what price

North Otago farmer Karl Haywood (pictured with wife Jilly and children) says it's not worth cutting corners on-farm as it may end up costing you more in the long-term.

Health and safety has been foremost on farmers minds this year. Even with the best intentions and plans accidents still happen and the implications can be profound. North Otago farmer KARL HAYWOOD has kindly shared his story.

As a sharemilker in a low payout, it's a constant battle to decide where to save money and what to cut out of your system.

Several of these decisions have come back to bite us this season, but the main being the decision to take on more work ourselves; not use relief staff or contractors.

Due to the extra pressure we had put on ourselves, I was in a rush to finish levelling an area across a fairly, steep slope where a new water pipe had been placed, before moving on to drilling.

I had the levelling bar on the back of the tractor, followed by the harrows and then the roller.

This was too much weight for our tractor on hills -- yet another attempt to save time and money.

It was too steep to go across the slope, too heavy to go up, so I came down. This was poor judgement, blurred by exhaustion and being in too much of a rush to assess the risk thoroughly.

Due to the unanticipated wet ground and the leverage affect of the trailed roller, the roller slipped down and round, jack-knifing with the tractor.

It caused the tractor to flip over on its roof and then back on its wheels.

I was extremely lucky to be able to walk away from the accident.

Still, I had concussion, stitches in my head, broken ribs and a partially collapsed lung meaning a few days in hospital and a week off milking.

Within 40 minutes of ringing an ambulance, WorkSafe tried to contact us and an investigation started the following day.

Two officers interviewed my wife while I was in hospital and then spent over an hour inspecting the accident site.

Fortunately we had put together a health and safety policy (mainly using saferfarms.org.nz) and were able to convey answers to their questions which proved we had procedures in place.

WorkSafe officers tried hard to put us at ease, and emphasised that their aim was to work with farmers to prevent future accidents rather than punish them.

They returned when the tractor was recovered and conducted a formal, recorded interview with us.

We are still waiting to hear their conclusions, but they have reassured us we are unlikely to be prosecuted.

In the end we had to use contractors to finish the work, as well as bear the extra cost of childcare, relief milker, painkillers and a new tractor (thank goodness we didn't cut back on insurance). Please don't forget you are the most valuable asset in your business and putting yourself under too much pressure will only ever cost you, at the very least, more money.