A Guide to Farm Health and Safety Policies with PDF Template

Health & Safety

Free health and safety policy template

To get you started, we've created a free farm health and safety policy template you can use on your farm.

What is a farm health and safety policy?

A farm health and safety policy provides guidelines for health and safety measures on farms. It contains information about hazards and risks on farms, and what can be done to combat them.

A farm health and safety policy can be an important component of complying with work health and safety obligations on a farm.

According to Safe Work Australia, a person conducting a business or undertaking must "ensure the health and safety of yourself, workers and others (including your family and visitors) at work", among other responsibilities. A farm health and safety policy can be a critical part of this.

New Zealand farmers and growers have similar responsibilities that can involve farm health and safety policies. For example, under the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992, employers must give employees information about workplace hazards and develop procedures for dealing with workplace emergencies.

Farm health and safety policies are just one document that can make keeping your team safe easier. For further information, check out our farm safety checklist.

What should a farm health and safety policy include?

A farm health and safety policy can look different for different farms. You should review regulations that are relevant to your farm and consider your particular needs. Remember that your legal responsibilities can differ around Australia and New Zealand.

However, the following areas are the perfect starting point for creating your farm health and safety policy.

1. Introduction

Your introduction should begin your policy by briefly laying out the different areas it will cover. It should illustrate the importance of the policy to your business.

It should explain the particular role your policy plays in your business. For example, is your policy a holistic guide that includes all the information your team needs to know about health and safety on your farm? Or is it a more general document that links in with other documents in your business?

In your introduction, you may refer to relevant legislation and how it has influenced your policy.

2. Team responsibilities

In this section, you should touch on the particular responsibilities different team members have for health and safety on your farm. If your agribusiness is a smaller operation, you might assign particular team members roles within your policy.

This may not be practical for larger businesses with high turnover. In this case, you might break your team down into groups and define responsibilities that way.

For example, you might discuss how managers have a special responsibility to create and enforce policies. Workers have a special responsibility to be aware of workplace policies and ensure they are followed in day-to-day operations.

3. Risk assessment and register

Farmers and growers should frequently conduct risk assessments. If you have recently conducted a comprehensive risk assessment on your property, you can simply attach it to your health and safety policy.

If you don't have a comprehensive, up-to-date risk assessment to include, you'll need to create a new one. A risk assessment should include a description of risks on your property, possible harms posed by the risk and measures in place to manage the risk.

A risk register is a useful accompaniment for a risk assessment. A risk register is typically a list of risks that is created after an assessment has taken place. It is filled out with additional information on the risk and control measures, such as the likelihood of harm caused before and after the implementation of control measures.

4. Safe work information

While risk assessments may contain safe work information, it is beneficial to include additional details for significant hazards on your farm.

For instance, if you were providing safe work information for working with livestock, you might include information like:

Guidelines around identifying signs of distress and aggression.
Using appropriate handling equipment like gates and halters.
Refer back to the emergency plan for managing incidents such as animal escapes or injuries.

5. Task safe work procedure

In this section, you should go into greater detail about conducting various tasks on your farm. You should provide a step-by-step breakdown of each task and provide detail on how it can be conducted safely.

Tasks to cover in this section of your policy may include:

Chemical use and handling.
Operating machinery like tractors, harvesters and quad bikes.
Performing tasks with livestock like feeding, milking and transporting.
Manual labour like lifting, carrying and digging.
Working at heights.

6. Emergency response plan

If possible, your farm health and safety policy should include your emergency response plan in full. For practical reasons, you may find it easier to include a summarised version with a direction for finding the full version of the plan.

Your emergency plan should include information like:

Contact details for emergency services, the local police station, fire warden, first aid officer, WHS officer and any other important health and safety figures.
The roles and responsibilities of the emergency management team.
The roles and responsibilities of supervisors and workers.
Evacuation procedures.
Emergency procedures
Testing procedures like evacuation drills.
Training overview.
Processes for reviewing, reporting and record-keeping.

7. Incident reporting and investigation

In this section of your farm health and safety policy, you should provide an overview of how health and safety incidents are reported on and investigated on your farm.

This process can vary greatly from one farm to another. However, the key steps that should generally be included in this process are:

Ensure the immediate safety of everyone involved in the incident.
Create an initial report of the incident. This can be done in person or can also be done with a farm health and safety app like Onside.
Fill in an incident form. This should include the names of the people involved in the incident, a detailed description of what occurred and any injuries or damage caused.
Any required photographic or video evidence should be collected.
A more in-depth investigation should be considered and if necessary, carried out. This may involve interviews of people involved and analysis of equipment.
Creating a corrective actions report to help develop actionable steps to reduce the likelihood of similar incidents occurring in the future.

8. Personal protective equipment

You can conclude your farm health and safety policy with some guidelines on personal protective equipment (PPE) on your farm.

This section can be organised in various ways. You may find it most useful to have a list of tasks on your farm in one column of a table. Then, in the second column, include all the necessary PPE required for that task.

For example, for the task "spraying pesticides", the necessary PPE might include:

Protective clothing.
Gloves.
Chemical-resistant boots.
Safety goggles or face shield.

Why are farm health and safety policies important?

Here are a few reasons why farm health and safety policies are vital to your agribusiness:

Protecting people on your property: This is the most important reason to invest time and effort into a farm health and safety policy. Taking fundamental steps to protect workers, visitors and contractors allows your farm to function smoothly with a safe and confident team.
Legal compliance: Farm health and safety policies can play an important role in legal compliance. Businesses across Australia and New Zealand are required to take reasonable measures to keep their staff members safe. They also have a responsibility to provide health and safety information to their team. Through a comprehensive farm health and safety policy, you can begin to ensure that you are meeting these requirements.
Improved efficiency: Taking the time to create health and safety policies will also help your farm operate more efficiently. Your team will be able to refer back to your policy for the best ways to conduct particular tasks. They will also be able to perform their role with confidence, knowing the proper precautions are in place to protect them.

What hazards should a farm health and safety policy address?

There can be many different hazards at play on farms. Here's a rundown of some of the major risk categories you might find on your farm.

For each category, we've also included a small list of hazards that can fall into that category. Remember that this is not an exhaustive list. You should carefully consider your own property to understand what hazards you should address in your policy.

Machinery and vehicle hazards

Machinery and vehicles are essential for farm operations. However, they can also present significant risks. Some relevant hazards on farms are:

Tractors.
Harvesters.
Power tools.
Hazards associated with machinery maintenance.

Chemical hazards

The use of chemicals is common on farms but can lead to serious health issues if not managed correctly. Chemical hazards on farms include:

Pesticides.
Herbicides.
Fertilisers.
Fuels and lubricants.
Cleaning agents.

Biological hazards

Biological hazards from plants and animals can never be fully eliminated on a farm. However, biological risks you should aim to control include:

Bites, kicks or crush incidents caused by animals.
Zoonotic diseases.
Allergic reactions or irritation from plant handling.
Insect bites and stings.

Ergonomic hazards

Ergonomics is an often overlooked hazard category on farms. Your team could face long-term injury from ergonomic problems like:

Manual handling.
Repetitive tasks.
Awkward posture.

Electrical hazards

Electrocution is an unfortunately common incident on farms. Carefully consider the potential for the following electric risks on your farm:

Faulty wiring.
Portable electric equipment.
Overhead power lines when working at heights.
Dangerous interactions between water and electricity.

Confined spaces

Confined spaces on farms such as silos and storage tanks can present unique hazards. These include:

Oxygen deficiency.
Extreme exposure to toxic gases like methane or ammonia.
Being trapped or suffocated by materials such as grain.

Mental health

Employers everywhere should always consider their employee's mental health. Specific mental health risks to keep in mind include:

Stress.
Fatigue, which can heighten risks of accidents and injuries.
Depression, anxiety and other clinical mental health issues.
Specific mental health issues that can apply to lone workers, such as extreme isolation.

Four ways to improve your farm safety with Onside

Creating a farm health and safety policy is the perfect time to reevaluate how you approach it on your farm. A farm health and safety app like Onside can lend a major helping hand.

Here's some ways Onside can boost farm safety on your property:

Check-in: Check-in features help to share health and safety information with team members and property visitors. Check-in systems are also helpful for lone worker safety. You can quickly identify potential emergencies if lone workers do not check out when expected.
Farm mapping: Farm mapping software helps to share live information about hazards on a farm. With Onside, your whole team can access a map on their mobile device and add updates. When it comes to health and safety, this is far superior to printing maps in an office.
Incident reporting: Onside's reporting features make it easy for health and safety incidents to be recorded and resolved. When your team has incident reporting software in their pockets, they're more likely to record events soon after they occur.
Emergency plan: Your emergency plan is one of your most important health and safety documents. You can store this plan in the Onside app with critical information like emergency contacts or the location of medical kits.

A Guide to Farm Health and Safety Policies (with Free PDF Template)