Every day is farm safety day on the farm. But the busy spring planting season demands extra attention to worker safety.
Longer hours, fatigue and racing against the weather create an environment ripe with risk and complacency.
Accident prevention is part of the solution to keeping Ontario farm families and workers safe while they’re doing what has to be done on the farm.
That is one of the messages OFA representatives carried forward in a recent meeting with Ontario’s new chief prevention officer George Gritziotis.
The meeting was to discuss the major changes that are occurring, including Ontario’s prevention services being moved to the Ministry of Labour.
It is OFA’s hope that with the move of prevention services members will see a better coordination of efforts and that Ontario employers, including farm operators, will see a more effective system to prevent workplace accidents.
Ontario’s chief prevention officer has a mandate to establish a provincial occupational health and safety strategy. He is also responsible for promoting the alignment of prevention activities across all workplace health and safety system partners, providing advice on preventing occupational injuries and illnesses, and working with health and safety associations to deliver programs and services, and comply with standards that are set by the minister.
OFA took the opportunity to discuss its role in working with a number of issues in Ontario’s farm sector. It spoke about the importance of preventing accidents on the farm, and asked that its sector be represented on the prevention council that is being established.
It put forward ideas on how to best work with its farm communities and work towards the prevention of farm-workplace accidents and fatalities.
One major topic of discussion for the OFA was the establishment of standards for employee training and certification. Ontario farmers employing workers can expect to see mandatory training requirements coming.
The goal is to ensure those requirements are thorough but not onerous and clearly relate to farming business realities. Like many small businesses, farm employers must be supervisors, human resources managers, payroll and accounting, and still bring a crop to market.
With so many roles to play, employers must be provided with clear options for achieving compliance.
The OFA is encouraged by the chief prevention officer’s positive attitude towards working and consulting with stakeholder organizations in the development of safety policies and regulations.
The OFA will continue to post updates on its involvement in the initiative on the website as we move forward.
Meanwhile, the OFA encourage all Ontario farmers to keep safety top of mind during this busy season.
Mark Wales is president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture
