Accidents are not inevitable, farm leader says

John Labes, a Lawrence farming leader, is still as passionately concerned about farm safety issues as he was 40 years ago.

Mr Labes (69), a former executive officer of the Clutha Agricultural Development Board and former sheep farmer, said 18 people he had known - mainly Otago farmers and rural contractors - had died over the past 40 years in farm accidents.

He and his wife Aileen, who moved to Mosgiel in retirement last month, have long been involved, through FarmSafe educational programmes, in helping to improve farm safety in Clutha and throughout Otago.

"Farm injuries are not inevitable," he said. "One of the myths is that getting injured is part and parcel of being a farmer. That myth needed to be broken.

"It's not inevitable any more than because you own a car you're going to have an accident."

Mr Labes has held many farming industry leadership roles at regional and national level.

He is a former chairman of the Otago Federated Farmers meat and wool section, a former director of the New Zealand Wool Board (1983-95), and a founding member as well as former executive officer (1999-2005) of the agricultural development board.

He has also chaired the Wool Research Organisation of New Zealand (Wronz, 1990-95) and the New Zealand Sheep Council (1995-98).

He has also long been a sheep farmer at Tuapeka Flat, near Lawrence, having started farming there in 1964.

Previously also a life member of Jaycees and of Wronz, he was last year given three further life memberships: of the Lawrence Lions Club, the development board, and the Tuapeka Goldfields Museum.

He was the museum's inaugural committee chairman.

After being involved with the Jaycees in Lawrence and in wider roles since 1964, he joined the Lawrence Lions in 1974, serving Lions in many roles over the years, including as chairman.

Lions staff said Mr Labes' family had been among the early settlers of the area, and Mr Labes had always taken a keen interest in the area's history.

Development board chairman Dave Inder, of Paretai, said Mr Labes had done great work in the promotion of the board.

He had managed the board successfully during five crucial years when interest in the organisation could easily have waned and income could have dried up.

Mrs Labes had also ably supported the board as secretary, keeping the paperwork and finances in good shape.

The two had been a team which had "done the ag board and the district proud", Mr Inder said.

Mr Labes also acknowledged his wife's work for the Lawrence community and her consistently "fantastic" support for him.

He completed a four-year bachelor of agricultural science degree at Lincoln University in 1962.

For the ensuing years, he had worked to move the latest in agricultural research "off the shelf" and to present it to farmers in a useful way.

He vividly recalled preparing for an examination as a first-year student at Lincoln in 1959 and receiving a letter advising him that a young friend had died in a tractor accident.

More than 20 farmers, farm workers and farm visitors were killed on New Zealand farms each year.

Thousands more required hospital treatment, including for knee and leg injuries, some caused by kicks from cattle and horses.

He emphasised the need for greater awareness of farm hazards and risk factors, including inattention through fatigue.

"Always be on the look-out because something can jump up and bite you."

Lincoln University officials have recently acknowledged Mr Labes' farming leadership, saying he was one of several graduates from a "remarkable period" in the late 1950s and early 1960s who had pursued "distinguished careers".

john.gibb@odt.co.nz [2]