Addressing On-Farm Fatigue: A New Initiative for Agricultural Safety

Merging Industry Insights and Research to Manage Fatigue in Farming

A new initiative led by the Rural Safety & Health Alliance (RSHA) and supported by various agricultural bodies aims to help the sector better understand, measure, and manage on-farm fatigue. This project, called “Farming and Fatigue: Growing Sensible Solutions,” is set to deliver comprehensive, user-friendly guidance tailored to the unique demands of farming.

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The agricultural sector is set to benefit from a groundbreaking project aimed at addressing on-farm fatigue, a critical issue affecting safety and productivity. The “Farming and Fatigue: Growing Sensible Solutions” project, led by the Rural Safety & Health Alliance (RSHA), seeks to merge industry insights with cutting-edge research to deliver practical solutions for farmers.

A collaboration between the Appleton Institute, the Ag Education and Extension team at CQUniversity Australia, and AgHealth Australia at The University of Sydney, the project aims to explore the root causes and impacts of fatigue on farms. By understanding these factors, the initiative seeks to enhance safety, productivity, and wellbeing across the agricultural sector.

Professor Sally Ferguson, director of the Appleton Institute and project lead, highlighted the importance of managing fatigue in farming. “The mining industry has been doing this for years – analyzing specific elements of their operators’ work that cause fatigue, understanding the specific consequences based on how their performance is impacted, and managing that risk. That’s what we want to learn for the farming sector,” she explained.

The project’s approach focuses on tailoring solutions to individual situations rather than imposing blanket changes. “It’s about saying, ‘What do you need to be thinking about while you’re working to keep yourself safe, happy, and productive?’” Prof. Ferguson emphasized. This perspective recognizes that fatigue levels can vary significantly depending on the time of year and specific farm activities.

Fatigue on farms has been identified as an industry-wide priority by the RSHA, which invests in improving primary production’s health and safety record through innovative research and development. Cotton Australia director Bernie Bierhoff underscored the various manifestations of fatigue and its impact on decision-making. “As people get fatigued, their sense of what is safe and what is not is blurred,” he noted.

To gather comprehensive insights, the project will conduct workshops with farmers and agricultural organizations, collecting data on the causes, consequences, and controls of fatigue. These findings will inform the design of a survey distributed nationwide, ensuring broad participation from farm owners, managers, workers, contractors, and family members.

The end goal is to develop risk profiles unique to each agricultural sector and create guides to support farmers in developing their own evidence-based fatigue-management programs. Initially focusing on dairy, eggs, cotton, and grains, the model will eventually be rolled out to the wider agricultural industry.

The project aims to produce a practical, user-friendly guide to help agricultural enterprises understand, measure, and manage fatigue on their farms. This guide will include tools for identifying “hot spots” where fatigue might be an issue and strategies to mitigate its impact without affecting production.

Mr. Bierhoff expressed his optimism for the project’s outcomes, emphasizing the importance of safety. “At the end of the day, we want all of our employees to be safe at work and be able to go home to their families, and this project is working towards that goal,” he said.

The Farming and Fatigue project is administered by AgriFutures Australia and funded by the RSHA, a partnership that includes AgriFutures Australia, Australian Eggs, Australian Wool Innovation, Australian Pork, Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC), Dairy Australia, and the Grains Research and Development Corporation.

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Addressing On-Farm Fatigue: A New Initiative for Agricultural Safety

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