WorkSafe Safety Push Reveals Major Farm Safety Gaps Across New Zealand
A safety push across New Zealand has revealed significant gaps in hazardous substances management, farm vehicles, tractors, quad bikes and side-by-sides.
A mate of the Hound’s, recently back home in Wakefield, Nelson following a month in Christchurch for medical treatment, reckons health and safety, ACC and other rules being imposed on farmers are ridiculous compared to other risky sectors.
A month in the big smoke exposed our man from Wakefield to hundreds of people indulging in the latest craze to hit our cities – Lime scooters.
He reports that he saw none of these scooter riders wearing helmets, and more often than not two people were hanging off one scooter, weaving in and out of traffic on footpaths or broken roads damaged by the earthquakes.
As he rightly pointed out to yours truly, “One has to question how much in ACC or WorksafeNZ fees the scooter operators are paying and what, so far, are the mounting costs of scooter accidents NZ-wide.”
On a farm in Tikorangi, North Taranaki, Brent Stevenson is sharemilking 1,400 cows.
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson says his party – NZ First - isn’t opposed to the “trade element” of a free trade deal with India.
The managing director of a company seeking to build a solar farm in Canterbury says receiving fast-track approval is a “really positive outcome”.
Retiring MP and dairy farmer Mark Cameron is blasting the Green Party for proposing to ban the use of synthetic fertiliser and cutting cow numbers.
A huge reduction in ACC claims from on-farm accidents over the last five years is due to thousands of small, practical decisions being made in sheds, yards, paddocks and around kitchen tables across the country, says Safer Farms ambassador Lindy Nelson.
Wayne and Ange Moxham of Horowhenua have just been named as Fonterra's top organic performer for milksolids. As well as providing organic milk to Fonterra, the couple also sell Udderly Organic milk to more than 100 outlets in the region and are embarking on another exciting venture producing organic gelato. Reporter Peter Burke went along to see their farming operation.

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