''If you're in a wheelchair, it's really, really hard to keep farming.''
That was one of the messages from WorkSafe New Zealand agriculture programme manager Al McCone at the Otago launch of the Safer Farms programme at Waipori Station.
Safer Farms is a multi year programme designed by farmers and the wider agricultural sector, WorkSafe New Zealand and the Accident Compensation Corporation.
It took the health and safety message directly to rural communities, through rural retailer education, school programmes, ''how to'' sessions at field days, and rural industry groups which would provide on site training.
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Michael Woodhouse said accidents happened every day on farms throughout the country.
In the time it took him to drive from Dunedin to Waipori Station, on the shores of Lake Mahinerangi, four farm workers would have filed claims with ACC for injuries at work, he said.
Another four would be filed while the launch was held, with another four as he drove back to the city.
If the industry's accident record was not changed, more than 21,000 injuries would occur by the end of the year - 10,000 of those serious enough to require time off work - and 20 people would die, he said.
Mr Woodhouse applauded those stakeholders involved in the development of the programme. The fact the sector had been involved in its development was an important feature, he said.
A considerable period of reform in health and safety was being entered, including legal and regulatory changes, and new rules and guidelines.
But if a step change was to be made in reducing deaths and injuries in the workplace, it would takes more than such changes to make that happen.
It was about people changing the way they behaved and the way they worked and not seeing health and safety ''as something you do when you're not busy'', or as an imposition, he said.
Mr McCone said the aim of the six year programme was to reduce the ''huge'' toll and Safer Farms and WorkSafe could not do that alone.
Safer Farms was about working with farmers, rural communities and communicators and the sector as a whole to provide support and the impetus to ''get this going''.
Large farming operators, such as Landcorp, various organisations and more than 600 individual farmers were spoken to.
The message was that the current workplace culture needed to be changed; many people still thought what they were doing was adequate.
''Unfortunately, they're the ones that end up in the hospital beds,'' Mr McCone said.
The dairy industry was the worst sector in New Zealand for accidents per head of population, while the sheep and beef sector was third behind forestry.
Good farming practices were about good risk management. Health and safety should be built into day to day activities and it should never be onerous but ''part and parcel'' of how farming was conducted, he said.
WorkSafe board member Paula Rose, the former head of road policing in New Zealand, said it was ''everyone's responsibility''.
It was about people in farming communities working together ''to make a better, brighter future for everyone working in it'', she said.
The Safer Farms programme included an easy to use toolkit and a comprehensive online resource - www.saferfarms.org.nz - so farmers had clear health and safety advice, and information.
At a glance
• 120 fatalities on farms in New Zealand between 2008 and 2014.
• More than 40% of New Zealand workplace deaths in 2014 were on farms.
• 1 in 5 pastoral workers make ACC claims every year.
• Agriculture sectors have the highest and third highest injury rates across all NZ employment groups.
• ACC agriculture cost was $171 million between 2008 and 2013.
