Safety Across The Harvest

By Kevin Borg, Chairman, CANEGROWERS Mackay

The harvest season brings with it certain risks, not just for farming and harvest crews, but also at times for the community.

In recent weeks, and across the state, we have seen a variety of accidents, on farms, on roads and on the cane rail network.

It is always saddening to see people hurt in the course of their work, or in the course of just getting about their daily business.

October is Safe Work month, so it is timely to think about the highly varied workplaces that we find in agriculture, and particularly during the cane harvest season. Our workplace is out in the paddock, in the shed, out on the road and in the sidings. Often our workplace is also our home.

We are now five months into the crush, and milling performance issues mean that we are well behind where we should be, and that the crush is likely to butt up against Christmas once again. There’s a long haul ahead yet.

So, it’s no time to become complacent about safety.

For growers and harvest crews, who are dealing with the challenges of facing that extended crush season, who might be working in the dark on early or late starts, who might be becoming frustrated if they are supplying to a mill that has stopped and started with delays all crush long. And there’s the older folks in the industry, some in their 70s and 80s – and there are plenty of them - who are grappling with all those factors plus the effects of age. All round, there is tiredness, there is frustration. There is the anxiety that once again, a portion of our crop - our livelihood - will stand unharvested in the paddocks.

But it is vital to keep our minds on the job. There’s no room for shortcuts or lapses in concentration. We want to see that every day, every person working in our industry goes home safely to their loved ones.

On top of the risks on the ground, it is timely to also remember the Look Up and Live message around power lines, whether people are moving harvest gear or irrigation equipment.

There are plenty of resources out there to help people improve their safety practices. Ergon offers a great free app that uses GPS to help pinpoint power line hazards, with a video how-to guide. Just Google it and it will be easily found.

And CANEGROWERS members, don’t forget your membership gives you access to tailored sugarcane growing industry Workplace Health and Safety resources via the local and state website’s members area.

To the community, we ask for your continued patience and vigilance with what can be slow moving large vehicles across the road and loco network. To take care and be vigilant when getting around our harvest vehicles, when crossing tramlines. This year, there is movement almost any time of day around the farms and mills.

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There are many safety issues across harvest - on the road, in the siding and around the railways. Photo credit: Kirili Lamb

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