Farmer Wants a Healthy Life
Farmer Wants a Healthy Life
The Audited - Safety from the Dining Room Table
In this episode we hear from Jason Mellings on his experience of having a VFF Making Our Farms Safer safety audit done. He shares what made him decide to get the audit done and what he has learnt from it. He also talks about the impact of bullying on the farm as an employer, and some things he has in place to help manage it.
If you would like your own farm safety audit done contact the Make Our Farms Safer team at 1300 882 833.
You can hear our podcast with John Darcy from the Make Our Farms Safer project in 'The Auditor – Man on a Mission'.
Interested in the topic and looking for more?
Making Our Farms Safer is a Victorian Farmers Federation project. The aim of the project is to deliver free safety tools and services across Victoria. These tools and services have a focus on safety, wellbeing and mental health. You can reach the Make Our Farms Safer team at 1300 882 833.
The available services include:
The project also has a range of handbooks available on different aspects of farm safety.
In the episode, Jason talks about bullying and harassment, and how it can impact farmers. Interested in getting more information to help you on your farm? Checkout the Beyond Blue, National Centre for Farmer Health and WorkSafe Victoria websites.
Are you a woman that wants to help advocate for farm safety? Plant a Seed for Safety is a project by farm safety advocate Alex Thomas. The project shares rural women's stories of encouraging safety on farms.
Looking for more information about Farm Safety? Check out the National Centre for Farmer Health, Farm Safe Australia, Better Health Channel or Work Safe websites.
Join the conversation
Facebook: @FarmerWantsaHealthyLife Twitter: @_FWAHL
Facebook: @FarmerWantsaHealthyLife Twitter: @_FWAHL
Brigitte
This is a West Wimmera Health Service podcast.
Presented by me, Brigitte Muir.
We heard all about the Making Our Farms Safer project from John Darcy, who travels Victoria helping farmers with their records and procedures. But what is it like from the farmers perspective? What do they learn from an audit? I travelled to Carron, west of Donald, and asked those questions to Jason Mellings, second generation farmer in between two COVID-19 lockdowns.
Jason
Yeah, I think…its five times we’ve cancelled this, so it's good to be here, actually.
Brigitte
It is, it is and what a beautiful place this is. This is… really the country of the skies isn’t it. Plus, you've got trees around the farm and it's… intimate… in a huge landscape.
Jason
Yeah, I’ve had a bit of a go at planting trees the last 20 years or… between me and my father, so previous generation, so yes, here we are.
Brigitte
How long has the family been living in Carron for?
Jason
My father he come from Nhill, the other side of Warrack, actually, so he come here with not much, and my mother was a schoolteacher come at of St Arnaud, and that was 1960, and so I'm only really the second generation, so haven’t been hear long a lot all compared to a lot of other people around the area.
Brigitte
Wow. That's interesting. What made you family move here?
Jason
I think it was a bit of a rundown pharmacy, I don’t think he could afford really, to be honest. He told me a story, he said one of the neighbours, said “you won't be here in five years’ time”. He said, “you might see 1965”. Anyway, we're still here. *Chuckles*
Brigitte
Excellent and obviously you have done a lot of improvements around. What have you… what kind of work has happened since 1965?
Jason
Back in 1970, that house was modified it's basically a new one. Yeah, look just what you see silos, shearing shed, weigh bridge… more trees… and …yeah, progressively bought more ground, a bit of machinery etc, etc. Like most standard farms really.
Brigitte
How big is the farm?
Jason
Ah its probably…two…two and a half thousand hectares, something like that. Yeah.
Brigitte
Okay.
Jason
Yeah.
Brigitte
Ok nd what do you grow?
Jason
Ah, wheat, barley, canola, lentils, beans
Brigitte
and you are someone who knows John Darcy.
Jason
That's right, I am
Brigitte
Tell me what made you contact John?
Jason
I shouldn't use the word fear, but I will, I guess probably because I was just thinking about the whole litigation thing, if something… like I do have quite a few employees come and go over harvest, crop, etc. And if something happens to one of these guys, we're in a fair bit strife, so I need some kind of a platform to stand on. Like OH&S WorkSafe platform, so I thought John's the man to set that up, so he come out for a day, and bought a USB stick and showed me all the stuff on the computer and …we just went from there really. Had to walk around a bit of a safety inspection. A few things to improve on. And that was that.
Brigitte
How did you hear about John and… the service?
Jason
Look, he's been advertised fairly extensively, and… I actually thought I'd just give them a call and take it up.
Brigitte
Do you know any other neighbours who might have done that as well?
Jason
I do. There's probably half a dozen I could, I could name is probably more. So… the take up has been pretty good actually.
Brigitte
What did you learn from it? John told me… that first it starts with sitting at the table, the kitchen table, or the dining room table, and talking about stuff. Is this what happened with you?
Jason
Most of the whole thing was, was exactly that. It was really just went through inductions…ah…litigation aspects and just your basic fundamentals …of safety guards and things like that… you know, bollards around chem tanks, etc, etc. And that led into just basically, if the farm is relatively neat, neat and tidy with signage. Yeah, that was pretty much it, and also the fact that it's an ongoing thing. So I mean, you might start now, but you just… work on it every year, you might have a bucket list of things to tick off, might take you five years, because I mean, let's face a lot of things aren’t that cheap. Like for example, one of the things we put in was a chem fill station, that the chemicals put up a chemical shed with a proper loading by with an evaporation pond. And I mean, it wasn't that dear but still that is one thing we did this year or last year actually, this year we're going to put up a new fuel tank and we the same type of thing. So, yeah, just every year you just do something after five years and look back… and… wallah… so it's just an ongoing process, really.
Brigitte
And tell me have you had any WorkSafe inspections?
Jason
No I haven't…
Brigitte
Ok
Jason
…Apparent from the one John did no not yet, few of the neighbours have, but fortunately or unfortunately I haven't so, yes.
Brigitte
It sounds like you're well prepared for one anyway. If it's not in place, it's in the plan that you can show, and that's gonna to happen.
Jason
Well, John's probably has got as much experience or more than those guys. I mean, he's been in it for 25 years or more. And he had a good look around, and we we're pretty good, and I think by default most places are. I mean, if you take machinery compared to say, say harvester back in 1980, you had half a dozen guards on it, which everyone took off and put in the bin or on the back of the workshop. Whereas now, harvester nowadays has got one big panel each side, you can flick a switch and the thing pops up and that's it. So… by default machines are better, as far as all that goes. So… most things and you know, all field bins and silos are all self-emptying now, so by default most things are pretty up to standard anyway.
Brigitte
Something, that I found interesting was that the mental health, I guess harassment, bullying, that kind of stuff, was also part of the plan, you need to have and you need to address those things. When you have people coming in and working for you, did you know that?
Jason
I'm really glad you asked that, because we actually went through this last harvest. Fortunately, we pulled it up to a degree, but we had a guy here that for some particular reason thought that he was not actually just a worker, he thought it was actually a manager, and the way he spoke to some of the other guys, he was disgusting. The ways they used look at me was not really flash, and it used to get my back up, I’ll admit that, to the point it came to a head one night. We nearly had a punch on. Fortunately, fortunately the guy that was causing the issue was smart enough to realise the other guy can fight, and he's big, and he drove up the end of the paddock in the chaser bin, but he asked for everything he got. Now I defused the situation and sorted it out and had a good talk to him. But …it's not good and I think, unfortunately, it's something a boss… and lets face it, I'm not a psychologist or a counsellor, I'm not trained in that area, but you just gotta have some common sense, and try and you know… it's part of the facets been in this industry. You got to be able to do that. And… it doesn't whether it's a farm or a building site, these things happen. Yeah, that whole mental health thing with that… is something guys got to be aware of, for sure. One thing I will say is, as well as it OH&S or WorkSafe documentation, we sign up when, when guys come on here, we've got a thing… it's called …workplace culture contract. And that just basically… outlines all the other peripheral things that go with it. So, all the rubbish you have during the day like Coke cans, etc. go on the bin when you finish that night. You don't just throw them out on the driveway, as you drive back to the farm that night, and they do, do that. We had a guy last year; it was exactly like that. I mean I used to find soft drink cans, in the trucks, like… the tank steps on the truck, there was coke cans, even the, the drop-down legs, worn down legs on the semi-trailers, the little feet on the bottom, there's coke cans shoved in there, cause they're too lazy to put them in the bin. This is all written up in this workplace culture. So, that if their doing that, I say “mate, when you signed up for this job, that was written down, you signed that, so put your stuff in the bin”. And it's the same with workplace bullying, swearing at people and disrespect… that's in there as well, so, that … if there ever any issues, I might, “when you go took this job, and you're paid well, your fed in house, that's part of it. The… you treat these guys respect, if there's any issues you come and see me, as your job is not to, to run people you’ve just got to drive that machine”. That's it. So yes, good question.
Brigitte
And it pays to be prepared obviously
Jason
It does. Yeah, you do have to prepare, because guys can present really well, when they first, when you first meet them. But after about a week the cracks open up, and everyone gets a bit tired to be comfortable and bang it's on, so…
Brigitte
And as the leader you really have to keep your eyes and ears open
Jason
And look as a leader, whether you like it or not, in this game, like in my position which most guys out there listening to this podcast, you are a leader, you're a boss, you're a counsellor, your psychologist, you got to read the play constantly. You know, you've gotten out of being a farmer growing crop, to running people. Your now running people, it is as simple as that.
Brigitte
That contract, with all those provisions for… let's call it mental health, is it something that people sign each time they come and get a job with you?
Jason
Yeah, just one off really. So, I mean really, for example this harvest, I've got a couple of new you guys will hopefully start. So, they'll sign up and go through it, probably takes about a half an hour to go through it all. I've actually got a friend of mine who does this, and she actually comes in and does a whole lot for me, and it actually works really well, because I'm not the bully boy. It's a facilitator that does it and I just back her up… and agree with what she says, or she might hand something over, and say “well what do you think, Jase?” and I go bang this about works. And she writes it off, signs it all up… and that takes a bit of heat off me. She takes all the heat, really and it works quite well.
Brigitte
Excellent. That's great. Yeah.
Jason
Plus, she's doing all the legwork, all the paperwork. So, she comes out …big stack of paper… everyone signs, signs, signs, all gets put on a computer, done.
Brigitte
When you had the consultancy in… the audit, what was the thing that you went “oh, I hadn't thought about that”.
Jason
Yeah probably the main thing, I hadn’t thought about signs. Just on chembsheds, diesel tanks… hearing protection signs in the workshop, just a few of those things. Hadn’t thought about that, and probably bollards, just around, like where we load the boom sprayer, there’s, we put shuttles just on that concrete, there next to the wall, and he said “really you probably should have some bollards around”, which is not a bad idea. Even around the UAN tank, probably need a couple of bollards there, and look it probably wouldn't help, but we actually did have a contractor come in with a lot of UAN, the other day and actually hit one of them. So, maybe if there was a bollard there it might have prevented that.
Brigitte
Would you recommend this service to farmers who are listening to this podcast?
Jason
I would recommend this service for sure. Well, there's plenty of platforms out there that cost money. John Darcy he’s top of the tree there, and he's been doing it for 25 years, knows his stuff, and he's really good at what he does. Look, that's where I’d be going. Look, if you get a facilitator and… just like I have, just to help out with the paperwork and get it done. That's a great idea as well. But if you don't want to do that, yeah, just get John to do it, and away you go. Or both, that’s what I’ve done, both.
Brigitte
Is there anything else that you… would like to mention?
Jason
Look, I do have a few notes here and. I guess if someone asked what are the three reasons why you do it, what I said was; one is… we don't want people to get hurt whether a family member, an employee or yourself. The other one thing is litigation I mean, we don't wanna… because probably you have all the OH&S and do everything 100, 100% right. But things still happen. You know, we deal with machinery, fatigue, tiredness…ra ra ra. So if something does happen, we end up in court, for example, with WorkSafe… at least if you've got some inductions, written down and all the stuff you've done on paper and have a, have a worksite inspection that comes up to speed. At least they can say “well this guy’s tried, it was just an accident”. But I mean, if you've got no maintenance records, for example, no inductions or anything, and you haven't really tried, I don't know how you'd go.
Maintaining good documentation is one thing I do, do, I mean, we keep logbooks on all of our farm gear. It actually does work pretty good. But I mean if something happens to the machine… and worksite office comes in and says “look, maintenance have you done on this tractor?”, well its all written on a little screen inside the cab. But they don't know that, if you've got all the early services written down on a bit of paper, you know like a book, cost you five bucks in Office Works. That's all I do, I'll just jot it down, hours and the date what we've done, you can see here, we've got a record of history here of service.
Brigitte
Basically, I think you've addressed everything that needed to be addressed. The most important thing is that there was a service available which is free to all Victorian farmers, and it's well worth using… yep
Jason
Yes agree
Brigitte
Tick and you've learned a lot from it, and you've got a plan, keeping records has been very important and seems to me… that you really are on the ball. And I would like to… thank you very much for… taking the time to talk with me, outside on the road,*laughter* just outside your property, because we do respect COVID rules. Thank you so much. And it's been fantastic coming over here and seeing another bit of the Wimmera.
Jason
Nah, pleasure thank you, Brigitte that was really good.
Brigitte
That was Jason Mellings, talking about making his farm safer and compliant.
You will find us always contact numbers and details in the notes attached to this episode. And while you're at it, please give us a star rating. We'd also love to hear your comments and suggestions. Our Facebook and Twitter details are in the notes. Until next have a healthy life won’t you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai edited by WWHS Health Promotion
