Vegetable growers lax over safety with mobile plant and hazardous substances

Workplaces in Perth running both undercover and outdoor vegetable-growing businesses were part of an inspection program carried out by WorkSafe inspectors from 2014–15, which has revealed safety concerns over the use of mobile plant and hazardous substances.

Because of the high level of fatal and serious injuries in the agriculture industry, WorkSafe Director Construction, Regional and Primary Industries Chris Kirwin said vegetable growing had been identified as an area of interest.

More than 300 improvement and prohibition notices were issued across the 41 workplaces visited during the program.

“More specifically, vegetable growing in the Perth metropolitan area was highlighted when properties were raided by police and other agencies and it was suspected that safety standards were not high,” said Kirwin.

“It was further suspected that injury statistics for the industry were underestimations, due to the high number of transient workers involved in vegetable growing and harvesting. A total of 297 improvement notices and seven prohibition notices were issued during the program, with the greatest number of notices relating to problems with mobile plant and hazardous substances.”

According to WorkSafe, 77 notices were issued relating to mobile plant, mostly for problems with maintenance, prestart checks and guarding not fitted to power take-offs.

A further 76 notices were issued for hazardous substances, with most relating to risk assessment records for hazardous substances, a lack of hazardous substance registers, no training for employees and a lack of health surveillance of workers.

“The results of this program confirmed the fact that mobile plant is known to be the biggest single cause of death and serious injury in the vegetable-growing industry,” said Kirwin.

“Wherever vehicles and people interact, strict rules need to be in place to ensure the work environment is kept as safe as possible, and a large number of recent incidents across industries indicates that more attention needs to be given to this crucial workplace issue.”

He said machinery guarding continued to be a serious concern, with 26 notices issued relating to a lack of guarding on power take-offs.

Another causal factor involved the risk of PTOs drawing clothing or body parts into the moving parts of machinery, often resulting in serious injury or even death.

Businesses also reportedly gave feedback to inspectors that there was little knowledge within the industry about the need for health surveillance when workers were coming into contact with organophosphate chemicals.

Of the 41 growers visited, 12 were using organophosphates and none of the workers at these were undergoing health surveillance.

For more information, including the Vegetable Growing Checklist and the Agricultural Safety and Health Checklist, call WorkSafe on 1300 307877 or visit www.worksafe.wa.gov.au.

Image credit: © gemenacom/Dollar Photo Club

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