Click photo to enlarge
John Labes... providing a lead in reducing farm accidents.
Photo by Gregor Richardson.
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
