Go woke!
OPINION: The Hound reckons the powers at Landcorp (or as they/them like to call themselves, Pāmu) are coming under the microscope with the new government in place.
STATE-OWNED FARMER Landcorp is setting out to model onfarm safety with a wide range of measures to safeguard staff.
This includes regular checks that staff are safe and a ‘black box’ system for its quads.
At Waikite Station, near Rotorua, manager Peter Strawbridge has various steps to safeguard his four staff, who often work alone. Each is issued with a radio telephone, so is each of their partners in their homes on the property. The RTs are programmed so that if the farmer doesn’t respond within a preset time an alert goes out to other staff.
Also, a speaker on the RT automatically activates after a short time in case, say, the farmer is trapped or injured and can’t physically use his RT. He can then use the speaker to call colleagues.
“It’s also got a GPS so if there is an accident we can put a helicopter right where the RT is,” explains Strawbridge.
“The problem of weekends, when we are often out working by ourselves and no one else is around, has now been covered. We have cellphone numbers programmed in so that if a person is in trouble it will ring the cellphones on the farm.
“Safety to me is paramount and you have to look after your people. I don’t want someone’s wife to ring up saying her husband hasn’t returned home, so we monitor everyone’s movements.”
Rules on quads are strict: no passengers, and all riders have to wear helmets and high viz gear. Landcorp’s new system Farm Angel ‘black box’, fitted to the quads, records a machine’s previous hour of use, including speed and terrain, to help investigators see what happened before and during an accident.
Strawbridge says the RT system cost about $7000, an irrelevant cost considering its potential to save a life. “I don’t care how much it costs, I want to make sure my team is 100% safe.”
Strawbridge says other contractors coming onto the farm are also given RTs and are fully linked into his safety system.
Analysis by Dunedin-based Techion New Zealand shows the cost of undetected drench resistance in sheep has exploded to an estimated $98 million a year.
Shipping disruption caused by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea has so far not impacted fertiliser prices or supply on farm.
The opportunity to spend more time on farm while providing a dedicated service for shareholders attracted new environmental manager Ben Howden to work for Waimakariri Irrigation Limited (WIL).
Federated Farmers claims that the Otago Regional Council is charging ahead unnecessarily with piling more regulation on rural communities.
Dairy sheep and goat farmers are being told to reduce milk supply as processors face a slump in global demand for their products.
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