Farm injuries at five-year high

Farmers racked up $84 million in injury claims last year – the costliest since 2015.

More than 22,000 farm-related injury claims were accepted by ACC, with an average of 60 workers injured every day.

Since 2015, ACC has spent more than $383m on farm-related injuries.

Waikato has had the highest number of farm-related injuries in the past five years with more than 22,600, ahead of Canterbury with more than 17,000, Manawatu¯Whanganui with more than 10,000, and Otago not far behind with more than 9500. Last year Canterbury had 3622 injury claims accepted.

The top three types of farming injury in 2020 were soft tissue injuries (66 per cent), laceration, puncture or sting (17 per cent) and fracture/dislocation (6 per cent).

Federated Farmers vice-president Karenwilliams said it was always alarming to hear about the number of injuries occurring on farm, especially if they were not

decreasing.

Williams said Covid-19 had caused restrictions on skilled labour coming to New Zealand and that had impacted on farmers.

‘‘It means they are working longer hours and rushing more.’’

Instead of ending their day, farmers would push to do one last job and the fatigue often led them to making a poor decision that caused an accident, she said.

ACC’S head of workplace safety, Virginia Burton-konia, said that while farmers spent their lives growing the country’s food, they were not great at looking after themselves.

‘‘Farmers need to get better at putting in systems to look after the most important asset on the farm– themselves and those who work in the business.’’

In 2016, ACC became a strategic partner of rural wellbeing programme Farmstrong and recently increased its investment to $3.5m over the next five years. Burton-konia said the programme helped farmers focus on simple tools like getting enough sleep, eating right and exercising.

The investment in Farmstrong was one of ACC’S injury prevention investments. Other investments include a subsidy on roll bars or crush protection devices for quad bikes and a partnership with NZ Shearing Contractors Association and Federated Farmers to develop Tahi Nga¯tahi – an online training platform for shearers and other woolshed workers.

An Acc-funded study for Farmstrong showed 58 per cent of recently injured farmers linked their accident to stress, with 25 per cent saying it was amajor factor.

Exhaustion and the stresses of farming contributed to the risk of farmers having an accident, the research shows.

‘‘It [shortage of skilled labour] means they are working longer hours and rushing more.’’

Karenwilliams Federated Farmers