Telling the safety officer who’s just arrived to conduct an inspection to leave — maybe with words your mother wouldn’t like.

Workplace Safety and Health laws to ensure safe job sites have applied to all farms in Manitoba since 1977, but these “impolite” encounters between farmers and Workplace Safety and Health Branch officers still happen.

It’s because some farm owners still don’t know the law applies to them, and that if an inspector arrives, they must allow them to do their job, says Keystone Agricultural Producers farm safety consultant Morag Marjerison.

“You have a legal duty to comply with the act and regulations. But not all farmers know that.”

Informing more farmers of their legal obligations and what safety officers may come looking for are topics Marjerison and KAP’s Manitoba Farm Safety Program staff are taking on the road this month in a series of no-cost information sessions.

She says larger farmers have typically been involved in safety training, or have met the safety officers previously so they are more aware of regulations. But often those with just one or two employees don’t know that much about the legislation or even if it applies to them.

“They’re the guys I’d really like to be talking to, because I think I can help them.”

Getting them up to speed on the requirements of the law can also help ease some of their concerns.

“There’s that fear factor there, if you don’t know about the legislation,” Marjerison said. “But ideally, if a farmer has learned about the legislation and made best endeavours to comply they shouldn’t need to worry about a safety officer coming to pay them a visit.”

A safety officer’s job is to inspect all types of workplaces “from restaurants to farms to construction sites,” Marjerison said.

“The Workplace Safety and Health Act and regulations apply to every owner, every employer, every supervisor and every worker, and every self-employed person. That’s pretty much everybody on the farm.”

Complaints about unsafe work conditions will trigger a visit, but random inspections can and do occur.

Forklifts and PTOs

The half-day sessions cover a host of things farmers should know about laws governing workplaces, including some of the most common non-compliant or unsafe conditions inspectors find on farms.

That can cover a whole range of things. Missing guards on everything from angle grinders to a ventilation fan to PTO shafts are far too common, said Marjerison, who estimates about one in every two farms she visits has an unguarded PTO shaft.

Other things inspectors will flag are altered forklifts. They may also request to see operating licences.

“Forklifts have massive amounts of legislation with them,” Marjerison said.

The session is also where farmers can get questions answered about Workers Compensation Board coverage and their obligation to report incidents if claims are triggered.

The Manitoba Farm Safety Association was created in 2016 by KAP to provide educational resources to farmers.

Eight sessions are being held this month including upcoming meetings June 14 in Boissevain, June 19 in Beausejour, June 21 in Steinbach, June 26 in Treherne, and June 28 in Morris.

For more information or to register contact: 204-697-1140 or visit the Manitoba Farm Safety Program website.

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Ten years ago the poultry processor’s Workers Compensation Board (WCB) experience rating was $7 per every $100 of payroll — WCB sets rates based on the employer’s track record. A major effort put towards reducing on-the-job injuries has now brought its premium down to $0.78.

That’s lower that the overall 2018 provincial average of $0.95. And a meat-processing plant, where employees work around knives and other cutting equipment is a very different job site than one with people sitting at desks all day.

“What I’m really pleased about is how health and safety have just become part of our culture,” said company CEO Craig Evans.

“We’ve made health and safety over the past 10 years a priority.”

This was a team effort achieved by really emphasizing effective health and safety practices and protocols for reducing on-the-job injuries and creating more satisfied and productive employees, he said.

They set aggressive targets with supervisors and put in place a variety of programs to certify staff on safety. Staff now receive regular education and training in proper workplace procedure. Everyone is required to wear the protective clothing the company provides and they also understand why wearing it is important.

“We certainly want to make sure that everyone has proper safety equipment, whether it’s gloves or face shields or hearing protection and eye protection,” said Evans. “All those things we provide and some of them we’ll customize depending on the individual.”

Granny’s Poultry also introduced a peer recognition program with safety awards given out to employees highlighting their individual efforts that inspire others to work safely.

An excellent safety record has been good for the meat-processing plant’s reputation as a desirable place to work too.

Granny’s Poultry has a total of 575 staff with about 540 employed at the main processing plant in Blumenort.

“There’s probably a core of about 400 people who have been with us for about 10 years,” Evans said.

“Certainly word spreads pretty quick when you’re in a small town as to whether or not you’re a good employer.”

“It makes sense to run an effective health and safety program because it benefits everyone, from our employees and their families to our members and our customers,” said Andrea Thomson, Granny’s Poultry director of human resources.

“We want to ensure our people arrive home safely to their families each and every day,” added Therese Babcock, the company’s health, safety and security manager.

The company last week hosted SAFEWork on Wheels at its Blumenort plant as part of its efforts to recognize North American Occupational Safety and Health Week (NAOSH). Employees saw safety demos illustrating the effectiveness of safety glasses, gloves and other protective wear, noted Evans.

During NAOSH week employers are urged to bolster their injury prevention efforts with employees and the general public by launching programs that reward health and safety.

The week is an opportunity for Manitobans to reflect on the many reasons why everyone should make safety a habit in their daily routine, Manitoba’s Minister of Growth, Enterprise and Trade Blaine Pedersen stated in a news release.

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“In times when we think we don’t have time for safety, we have to really step back and make time, because the consequences of not making time are actually you lose more time,” he said.

Farm safety is a topic the mixed producer from Rosser, Man. has extensive, and unfortunately tragic, experience with.

In 1996, one year after Holtmann and his brother, Tony, bought their parents’ farm, their father was killed when the baler he was repairing ejected, pinning him below.

“For us, it was all of a sudden like, ‘Wow, we just lost one of the most experienced operators on the farm. Not only that, it was our father, of course, and, you know, third partner. Now what are we going to do?’” Holtmann recalled. “We hadn’t even had a year in this bold new partnership and this happened. So that really kind of made us think about things.”

Holtmann’s story is far from unique, and indicative of an industry that, despite recent decreases in fatalities and upswing in awareness around farm safety, still commonly ranks among the most dangerous jobs in Canada.

According to the latest data from the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association (CASA), there were 843 farm-related fatalities in Canada from 2003 to 2012, an average rate of 11.5 deaths per 100,000 farm population. Of those, 70 per cent involved machinery, 149 (18 per cent of all deaths) involved run-overs, 143 were chalked up to rollovers and 77 (nine per cent of total fatalities) were caused by being pinned or struck by equipment.

Being pinned or struck by an object (both machine and non-machine related) accounted for 162 deaths, with heavy machines not under power (26 fatalities), round bales (23 deaths) and other heavy non-machine objects (23 deaths) as the worst offenders.

Additionally, a full half of the 149 run-over deaths reported were caused by unmanned machinery left running or unblocked on a slope and over half, 62 per cent, involved a tractor.

“It’s this whole concept of managing the behaviour, of managing the risks and communicating in terms of following a procedure,” Glen Blahey, CASA agricultural health and safety specialist, said. “It becomes an issue of concern in terms of equipment not being properly disengaged and so on and the perception of, ‘I’m only going to do this for a moment and I’ll be right back.’”

But while those continued concerns exist, Blahey said he is encouraged by recent data, which showed a drop in farm-related fatalities.

Total fatalities are down over the last three decades, dropping from an average 116 deaths per year between 1990 and 2001 to 85 per year in the 11 years following, according to CASA.

Of the most common causes, deaths by rollover have decreased an average 3.6 per cent per year, while run-over fatalities have dropped 2.3 per cent annually.

Likewise, fatality rates from being pinned or struck by machinery plummeted an average 7.8 per cent per year between 2003-12.

“Occupational health and safety is being embraced far more in the agricultural sector currently than it has been previously,” Blahey said. “There’s a growing level of acceptance, an increasing level of understanding, in terms of occupational safety and health in fact being a risk management tool. Producers invest a lot of time and effort in terms of looking at their production cycles and looking at what they’re going to raise and how they’re going to raise it, how they’re going to manage it and so on, so that they can be as productive and efficient as possible. I sense that there are a growing number of producers who are recognizing that when an injury, when an incident occurs, it impacts the productivity of their operation.”

In Holtmann’s case, the growing awareness of farm safety came from the memory of losing his father, experience as a Dairy Farmers of Manitoba board member and impact of injury he observed in his own employees. On top of sympathy for the injured party, Holtmann pointed to the economic cost of having an employee off work, requiring replacement and retraining.

“If we could prevent that, certainly we would have a really healthy workforce, so that’s really what motivated us, and by no means are we perfect at it, but if you can prevent that simple little slip, like by stepping off a Bobcat and doing it properly versus jumping off, you’re going to save yourself lots of headaches from that event happening,” Holtmann said.

Rosser Holsteins, which works 2,500 acres and includes a 500-head dairy, employs about 15 staff over and above the Holtmann family. One family member heads safety programming and information, Holtmann said, while training sessions and job shadowing are provided for new hires, safety posters are put up, zones exist where protective equipment is mandatory and employees are informed that they are able to refuse unsafe work without retaliation.

The Holtmanns have identified several main areas of risk in their operation, starting with interaction between humans and animals and moving on through muscular/skeletal injuries, working with machinery and working with chemicals.

Animal interactions, in particular, have seen practices change in the Rosser operation.

According to the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association, 65 animal-related deaths were reported from 2003-12, making it the most common cause of death not involving machinery and the fourth most common cause of all farm fatalities at eight per cent. Of those, 45 per cent involved cattle.

The risk has led Rosser Holsteins to give more consideration for staff unused to working with animals, to train for situations such as when the cows go into heat and to mark animals with aggressive behaviours.

“What we do now is we actually paint the ear tags red on the cow and identify it in the lunchroom and identify where that animal is so that people know that they have to keep an eye out for that individual and then when they see a red ear tag they know, ‘Oh, I better keep an eye on that one and never turn my back,’” he said.

Data gap

While latest data shows fatalities dropping, information on farm injuries is more elusive.

Keith Castonguay, director of the Manitoba Farm Safety Program, pointed anecdotally to altered or removed equipment guards, moving PTOs and augers, equipment lockout and livestock as common causes for injury, but says he is waiting on statistics from the Workers Compensation Board and SAFE Work Manitoba.

Even then, he warned that any numbers he receives will be incomplete, as many farm injuries never get reported to those agencies.

“If you work in a factory, that’s all reported and then it comes out as a bulletin,” he said. “In the farm industry, with all the independent farmers that we have, there’s no process to report injury on a regular basis. And, to be fair, a lot of people value their confidentiality and so a lot of things that happen just aren’t being broadcast.”

It’s an issue Castonguay plans to bring forward in future meetings of the Manitoba Farm Safety Council, a new entity drawn from commodity groups and stakeholders. Eventually, he says, he hopes to promote increased injury reporting or use hospital data to gain better statistics.

In November 2016, the province and federal government announced $432,000 over the next two years for farm safety education and training. The newly minted Manitoba Farm Safety Program would be administrated by Keystone Agricultural Producers, and guided by the farm safety council, the government said. The initiative continued KAP’s existing efforts with on-farm safety consultations, a program that gathered steam under safety adviser Morag Marjerison.

Safety plan consultation and on-farm measurement of chemicals, noise or other concerns are also under the program’s mandate.

“We’re not an arm of government,” Castonguay said. “We respect confidentiality. When we come on site, we’re not about to report everything we see to the government in a compliance or regulatory role. We’re there to help, advise and support and to develop programs so that there is compliance in the future.”

The council has met once since it was announced in late 2016.

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But the sheer need to do a lot of work, combined with the value farm culture places on it, gets in the way of creating a “culture of safety” in Canadian agriculture, say experts on organizational behaviour and workplace leadership.

Agriculture’s abysmal record of injuries and fatalities says it all: farmers clearly don’t pay much heed to personal safety and health in their workplace.

Disregard for it springs from a culture where work is paramount, and a key “expressed value,” of farm culture, says Sue Bruning, a professor of business administration at the I.H. Asper School of Business at the University of Manitoba speaking at the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association’s (CASA) national convention in Winnipeg Winnipeg last week.

“Why don’t we do the right things? A lot of it is related to culture.”

She points out that even as agriculture ranks alongside mining and construction as a dangerous workplace and “work tough” culture, the latter two industries have arguably made more headway in reducing workplace injuries.

Agriculture’s problem is its “manifest culture,” says Bruning, evident in its group norms, cultural expectations and habits of thinking that place a very high value on work.

CHANGE IN CULTURE

Changing that is key to developing more precautionary approaches to work, with higher regard for safety and health of workers, Bruning says.

In up to 85 per cent of workplace injury events, it is behaviour, not the inherent dangerous conditions of the workplace, that are the root cause.

“It’s because we didn’t connect the harness or wore the seatbelt or turned the machine off before we started handling it,” she said. “In only about 15 per cent of cases were the workplace conditions unsafe.”

And that sort of behaviour, which springs from attitudes towards work and how the job is done are part of culture. The expressed values and basic assumptions of farm work culture are summed up in statements like “it won’t happen to me,” or “I’ve done it this way all my life,” and in reproaches like “who do you think you are to tell me how I should do things,” adds Bruning.

Kevin Kelloway, Canada research chair in Occupational Health Psychology at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, says the problem is compounded because farmers are accustomed to risk.

It’s not that anyone deliberately puts themselves or others in danger, says Kelloway “It’s just that you can’t see the hazards anymore. You just get used to them because they’ve been there so long.”

LEADERSHIP

Yet changing cultural expectations is fundamental if any dent in the incidence of farm injuries and death is to be made.

What’s needed is leadership coming from within the farm community itself, say Bruning and Kelloway.

Leadership in safety takes the form of emphasizing and rewarding safe behaviour, offering direction and feedback on safe work procedures, and responding to safety concerns immediately, says Kelloway.

Safety leaders challenge the prevailing assumption that “sooner or later everyone gets hurt” or that “anyone who works here for any length of time is going to have some scars,” he said. Safety leaders encourage workers to work safer and behave in ways they expect others to behave.

The farmer who doesn’t wear protective personal equipment himself, or takes dangerous shortcuts, is sending a message of what he expects to everyone else he’s working with, said Bruning.

“If the boss emphasizes productivity that’s what everyone will focus on,” said Bruning. “On the other hand, if the boss emphasizes safety, that’s what people will focus on.”

Kelloway warns, however, of the “laissez-faire leader,” or those in charge who, while safety may be somewhere in the back of their minds, never addresses the matter directly and remains focused on other matters.

“Bad leadership is when the topic just never gets raised,” he said.

MOMENTUM

“I do think we need to look at how we can show by example,” says Doug Chorney, vice-president of Keystone Agricultural Producers, who heard Bruning’s and Kelloway’s presentations last week.

There’s been significant investment and consideration paid to agricultural safety by farm organizations in recent years, and he believes the younger generation of farmers are now preparing to play by new rules of the game.

Younger farmers do not find acceptable the prevalence of farm workplace injury to the extent an older generation has, Chorney said.

“I’m seeing a lot of push-back on that historical attitude.”

Chorney said organizations like KAP are also trying to offer this kind of leadership through offering initiatives that will help farmers create safer workplaces. A key project of KAP this winter will be rolling out the Safe Farm Check program to farmers across the province in a partnership the farm lobby has developed with MAFRI and the Workers Compensation Board.

“It remains to be seen this winter how it’s going to be picked up,” said Chorney. “But I think we’ve got some really good components coming together.”

Dean Anderson, chair of CASA, and regional director of Workplace Safety and Prevention Services in Western Ontario, also believes farm culture is changing, albeit slowly.

The three-year agricultural safety theme adopted by the industry, to “Plan. Farm. Safety” is “trying to add some momentum to it,” Anderson said.

INVESTING IN SAFETY

A new resource unveiled at the CASA conference this month aims to get Canadian farmers thinking about safety in a different light. Planning for safety is about integrating approaches for improving safety and health into the overall business plan, and viewing safety as a sound investment.

They’re trying to change another mindset – that investments in a safer workplace is a net cost to the operation, said Anderson.

“You plan with your banker and your fertilizer company and your seed company and equipment dealer,” he said. “We want safety to be thought of the same way. It’s part of your business plan and your operating plan.”

Anderson said its unlikely that many farmers have any sort of documented safety plan.

“Probably less than 10 per cent,” he said. “Many may have one in their head. But the trouble with that is you can’t show it to anyone else.”

About 70 farmers, safety professionals, suppliers, trainers, manufacturers and researchers attended the three-day CASA conference at which speakers addressed a broad range of topics related to understanding what’s needed to support regional and national agricultural safety programs. lorraine@fbcpublishing.com

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“This will be quite different than anything we’ve done before because we’ll actually be hiring a couple of people to go to the farms and to work with the farmer and their employees and go through the safety issues right there on the farm.”

– KAP PRESIDENT IAN WISHART

Farmers who employ workers now have access to a new safety service – trained farm safety specialists who can come to their individual farms and work with the farmer and staff to improve workplace safety.

The new service was announced last week at a kick-off event in Winnipeg launching Canadian Agricultural Safety Week in Manitoba.

Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP) is partnering with the Workers Compensation Board (WCB) to deliver the service, and has been awarded a $188,000 grant from the WCB to develop it over two years as a pilot project.

KAP welcomes this as a way to improve Manitoba’s farm safety record, said president Ian Wishart. The program will

compliment other government initiatives such as the Manitoba Safe Farms Check program.

“We consider farm safety one of the more important issues that we have to deal with and we know our safety record is not among the best by any stretch so we have to

put more emphasis on it,” said Wishart.

KAP will hire the safety specialists, then begin directly contacting farms in Manitoba to offer their services, Wishart said. The project aims to provide occupational health and safety services to individual farmers and farm workers including one-to-one safety and health education and health tests. The specialists will also conduct on-site farm reviews of potential site hazards and propose measures to mitigate the identified risks.

“This will be quite different than anything we’ve done before because we’ll actually be hiring a couple of people to go to the farms and to work with the farmer and their employees and go through the safety issues right there on the farm,” Wishart said. All visits will be pre-arranged with farmers.

This project’s focus will be on larger farmers who employ staff but is open to any individual farm family who wants to participate as well, Wishart said.

KAP will be directly contacting farms later this year to inform them of the new project and encourage their participation.

The grant has been awarded to KAP through the WCB’s Research and Workplace Innovation Program (RWIP) which annually funds research and programs that help implement practical, shop-floor solutions for improving workplace health and safety.

Safety Week runs through March 14 to 20 across Canada.

lorraine@fbcpublishing.com

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Glen Blahey quickly learned not to take the low turnouts personally. Having a farm background himself, he knows that while most farmers feel they run a safe operation, they are reluctant to hear about changes.

However, a Farm Safety and Health Seminar held in Winnipeg Nov. 6 and 7, was well attended considering the bad weather. According to counts from Keystone Agricultural Producers, 45 producers registered with only three no shows.

And while the numbers were not stellar, Blahey is happy to get the message to any farmer who will listen.

Doug Chorney, chair of the safety committee for KAP said every statistic represents a “preventable injury.”

While many farmers fear the inclusion of the mandatory Workers Compensation Board inclusion, he said it will actually go a long way to protect the farmer and his operation from liability.

With or without WCB, Chorney said farming safely should be thought of in a different way.

Blahey wondered if there would be a way to rebrand the safety message and admitted to using different topic names to get his audience to hear him out.

“If I’m the last speaker at a conference, I see people slipping out after the afternoon break,” he said.

But at this conference, all about safety, attendees stayed put.

KAP general manager Yvonne Rideout used the end of the second day to elicit feedback from participants looking for ideas to help producers adopt better safety practices and for ideas for resources for them.

Many producers seemed to want an approach similar to the Environmental Farm Planning workshops. They wanted help identifying hazards with the promise of confidentiality. Producers also wanted the freedom to deal with the hazard as they see fit or as they could afford it.

Some suggested that incentive programs could help farmers introduce more costly safety measures.

Marcel Hacault, executive director for Canadian Agricultural Safety Association said “old habits” is one of the leading factors that prevent safety.

Some farmers protest that it takes more time to adopt safe habits. That gets no argument but shortcuts can lead to accidents.

“To farm safely, the shortcut does not take you home,” said Rob Brunel, vice-president of KAP.

According to CASA’s studies of the problem, drivers for making a change to safer practices are, loss of productivity, protecting young families and first-hand experience with an accident.

Hacault said about 30 per cent of Manitoba farmers are expressing an interest in some farm safety training, but only 15 per cent have a formal safety program.

Most express an interest in first aid training and how to work with children on the farm. Others are concerned about liability.

“No farmer wants to be on the front page of the newspaper,” he said.

Brunel said he didn’t always think of safety first. But after marrying and becoming a daddy for the first time, the Ste. Rose-area farmer now looks at things differently.

“Here are my reasons for farming safely,” he said while displaying a photo of his family.

bonnieb@fbcpublishing.com

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