The six steps to safety have come to agriculture.
“This hierarchy of control is not new (in industry), but it’s new to agriculture,” said Dr. James Dobson, chief executive officer of Agrivita Canada, a non-profit corporation promoting health and safety research and its effective application to the agriculture sector.
“What I like about the six steps is for the first time it introduces the possibility of an organized, methodical approach to handling workplace issues on farms.”
Dobson, who is considered the “father of agricultural medicine” in Canada and was instrumental in establishing the Canadian Agriculture Safety Program, said he’s committed to ensuring that farmers and agricultural workers have a standard of occupational health and safety equivalent to other industries.
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He described the six steps to safety as a modified hierarchy of control, using the example of a ladder leaning against a metal grain bin:
- hazard description: ladder leaning against a bin
- risk assessment: falling off the ladder
- elimination of the hazard: using a horizontal bin that does not require using a ladder
- engineering controls: securing the ladder to the bin along with a safety cage
- administrative and procedural systems and controls: outlining a protocol for mounting the bin, using a ladder that would have steps and a safety cage, never working alone, using a restraining device
- personal protective equipment: safety boots and glasses, gloves
A research project testing the modified hierarchy of control was used on Saskatchewan farms in 2013.
About 2,600 individuals took part in the mail-in survey, including 1,100 owner-operators. The survey looked at the number of hours of farm work and any farm related injuries.
“We found that among all the groups, that when they used up to four of the six steps in the hierarchy of control, the injury rates were reduced from about 10 percent a year to three percent per year,” Dobson said June 7 after speaking to the National Summit on the Control of Agricultural Injury and Death in Canada in Saskatoon.
“The take home message is that is a dramatic reduction in injury. If farmers could reduce their injury rates by a factor of three, that would be one of the biggest revolutions in modern agriculture.”
However, Dobson said more research is needed.
“There’s a lot that we don’t know yet, like what is it about those farmers that always adhere to four out of six steps. Why is that?”
The hierarchy of control is actually an old model, first adapted by industry in the 1950s.
“Industry is organized,” Dobson said.
“The owners have a high stake in preventing illness and injury: there’s a cost for workman’s compensation, reputation and because it’s the right thing to do.”
However, as owner-operator agricultural businesses continue to grow in size, so too does the possibility for occupational health and safety.
“I think that as farms get larger and we get the model of the employed worker, workplace starts to take on more of the characteristics of, what I would call, the more highly organized workplace,” he said.
“It’s the right thing to do, but beyond that the owner has an economic incentive to ensure the safety and well-being of employees.… I think also when we live and work in the same place, it’s all just home.”
