Landcorp sets on-farm safety standards

 This includes regular checks that staff are safe and a ‘black box’ system for its quads.

At Waikite Station, near Rotorua, manager Peter Strawbridge has various steps to safeguard his four staff, who often work alone. Each is issued with a radio telephone, so is each of their partners in their homes on the property. The RTs are programmed so that if the farmer doesn’t respond within a preset time an alert goes out to other staff. 

Also, a speaker on the RT automatically activates after a short time in case, say, the farmer is trapped or injured and can’t physically use his RT. He can then use the speaker to call colleagues.

 “It’s also got a GPS so if there is an accident we can put a helicopter right where the RT is,” explains Strawbridge. 

“The problem of weekends, when we are often out working by ourselves and no one else is around, has now been covered. We have cellphone numbers programmed in so that if a person is in trouble it will ring the cellphones on the farm.

“Safety to me is paramount and you have to look after your people. I don’t want someone’s wife to ring up saying her husband hasn’t returned home, so we monitor everyone’s movements.” 

Rules on quads are strict: no passengers, and all riders have to wear helmets and high viz gear. Landcorp’s new system Farm Angel ‘black box’,  fitted to the quads, records a machine’s previous hour of use, including speed and terrain, to help investigators see what happened before and during an accident.

Strawbridge says the RT system cost about $7000, an irrelevant cost considering its potential to save a life. “I don’t care how much it costs, I want to make sure my team is 100% safe.” 

Strawbridge says other contractors coming onto the farm are also given RTs and are fully linked into his safety system.